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Title: The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Volume 2
Author: Edward Gibbon
Commentator: H. H. Milman
Release Date: April, 1997 [EBook #891]
[Most recently updated: March 23, 2020]
Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE ***
Produced by David Reed, Dale R. Fredrickson and David Widger
CONTENTS
Chapter XVI—Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To Constantine.—Part I. Part II. Part III. Part IV. Part V. Part VI. Part VII. Part VIII.The Conduct Of The Roman Government Towards The Christians, From The Reign Of Nero To That Of Constantine.
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part I. Part II. Part III. Part IV. Part V. Part VI.Foundation Of Constantinople.—Political System Constantine, And His Successors.—Military Discipline.—The Palace.—The Finances.
Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.—Part I. Part II. Part III. Part IV.Character Of Constantine.—Gothic War.—Death Of Constantine.—Division Of The Empire Among His Three Sons.— Persian War.—Tragic Deaths Of Constantine The Younger And Constans.—Usurpation Of Magnentius.—Civil War.—Victory Of Constantius.
Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part I. PartII. Part III. Part IV.Constantius Sole Emperor.—Elevation And Death Of Gallus.— Danger And Elevation Of Julian.—Sarmatian And Persian Wars.— Victories Of Julian In Gaul.
Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.—Part I. Part II. Part III. PartIV.The Motives, Progress, And Effects Of The Conversion Of Constantine.—Legal Establishment And Constitution Of The Christian Or Catholic Church.
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part I. Part II. Part III. Part IV. Part V. Part VI. Part VII.Persecution Of Heresy.—The Schism Of The Donatists.—The Arian Controversy.—Athanasius.—Distracted State Of The Church And Empire Under Constantine And His Sons.—Toleration Of Paganism.
Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part I Part II. Part III. Part IV.Julian Is Declared Emperor By The Legions Of Gaul.—His March And Success.—The Death Of Constantius.—Civil Administration Of Julian.
Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part I. Part II. Part III. Part IV. Part V.The Religion Of Julian.—Universal Toleration.—He Attempts To Restore And Reform The Pagan Worship—To Rebuild The Temple Of Jerusalem—His Artful Persecution Of The Christians.—Mutual Zeal And Injustice.
Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part I. Part II. Part III. Part IV. Part V.Residence Of Julian At Antioch.—His Successful Expedition Against The Persians.—Passage Of The Tigris—The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Election Of Jovian.—He Saves The Roman Army By A Disgraceful Treaty.
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The Empire.—Part I. Part II. Part III. Part IV. Part V. Part VI. Part VII.The Government And Death Of Jovian.—Election Of Valentinian, Who Associates His Brother Valens, And Makes The Final Division Of The Eastern And Western Empires.—Revolt Of Procopius.—Civil And Ecclesiastical Administration.— Germany.—Britain.—Africa.—The East.—The Danube.— Death Of Valentinian.—His Two Sons, Gratian And Valentinian II., Succeed To The Western Empire.
Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.—Part I. Part II. Part III. Part IV. Part V.Manners Of The Pastoral Nations.—Progress Of The Huns, From China To Europe.—Flight Of The Goths.—They Pass The Danube. —Gothic War.—Defeat And Death Of Valens.—Gratian Invests Theodosius With The Eastern Empire.—His Character And Success. —Peace And Settlement Of The Goths.
The Conduct Of The Roman Government Towards The Christians, From The Reign Of Nero To That Of Constantine.
If we seriously consider the purity of the Christian religion, the
sanctity of its moral precepts, and the innocent as well as austere lives
of the greater number of those who during the first ages embraced the
faith of the gospel, we should naturally suppose, that so benevolent a
doctrine would have been received with due reverence, even by the
unbelieving world; that the learned and the polite, however they may
deride the miracles, would have esteemed the virtues, of the new sect; and
that the magistrates, instead of persecuting, would have protected an
order of men who yielded the most passive obedience to the laws, though
they declined the active cares of war and government. If, on the other
hand, we recollect the universal toleration of Polytheism, as it was
invariably maintained by the faith of the people, the incredulity of
philosophers, and the policy of the Roman senate and emperors, we are at a
loss to discover what new offence the Christians had committed, what new
provocation could exasperate the mild indifference of antiquity, and what
new motives could urge the Roman princes, who beheld without concern a
thousand forms of religion subsisting in peace under their gentle sway, to
inflict a severe punishment on any part of their subjects, who had chosen
for themselves a singular but an inoffensive mode of faith and worship.
The religious policy of the ancient world seems to have assumed a more
stern and intolerant character, to oppose the progress of Christianity.
About fourscore years after the death of Christ, his innocent disciples
were punished with death by the sentence of a proconsul of the most
amiable and philosophic character, and according to the laws of an emperor
distinguished by the wisdom and justice of his general administration. The
apologies which were repeatedly addressed to the successors of Trajan are
filled with the most pathetic complaints, that the Christians, who obeyed
the dictates, and solicited the liberty, of conscience, were alone, among
all the subjects of the Roman empire, excluded from the common benefits of
their auspicious government. The deaths of a few eminent martyrs have been
recorded with care; and from the time that Christianity was invested with
the supreme power, the governors of the church have been no less
diligently employed in displaying the cruelty, than in imitating the
conduct, of their Pagan adversaries. To separate (if it be possible) a few
authentic as well as interesting facts from an undigested mass of fiction
and error, and to relate, in a clear and rational manner, the causes, the
extent, the duration, and the most important circumstances of the
persecutions to which the first Christians were exposed, is the design of
the present chapter. *
The sectaries of a persecuted religion, depressed by fear animated with
resentment, and perhaps heated by enthusiasm, are seldom in a proper
temper of mind calmly to investigate, or candidly to appreciate, the
motives of their enemies, which often escape the impartial and discerning
view even of those who are placed at a secure distance from the flames of
persecution. A reason has been assigned for the conduct of the emperors
towards the primitive Christians, which may appear the more specious and
probable as it is drawn from the acknowledged genius of Polytheism. It has
already been observed, that the religious concord of the world was
principally supported by the implicit assent and reverence which the
nations of antiquity expressed for their respective traditions and
ceremonies. It might therefore be expected, that they would unite with
indignation against any sect or people which should separate itself from
the communion of mankind, and claiming the exclusive possession of divine
knowledge, should disdain every form of worship, except its own, as
impious and idolatrous. The rights of toleration were held by mutual
indulgence: they were justly forfeited by a refusal of the accustomed
tribute. As the payment of this tribute was inflexibly refused by the
Jews, and by them alone, the consideration of the treatment which they
experienced from the Roman magistrates, will serve to explain how far
these speculations are justified by facts, and will lead us to discover
the true causes of the persecution of Christianity.
Without repeating what has already been mentioned of the reverence of the
Roman princes and governors for the temple of Jerusalem, we shall only
observe, that the destruction of the temple and city was accompanied and
followed by every circumstance that could exasperate the minds of the
conquerors, and authorize religious persecution by the most specious
arguments of political justice and the public safety. From the reign of
Nero to that of Antoninus Pius, the Jews discovered a fierce impatience of
the dominion of Rome, which repeatedly broke out in the most furious
massacres and insurrections. Humanity is shocked at the recital of the
horrid cruelties which they committed in the cities of Egypt, of Cyprus,
and of Cyrene, where they dwelt in treacherous friendship with the
unsuspecting natives; and we are tempted to applaud the severe retaliation
which was exercised by the arms of the legions against a race of fanatics,
whose dire and credulous superstition seemed to render them the implacable
enemies not only of the Roman government, but of human kind. The
enthusiasm of the Jews was supported by the opinion, that it was unlawful
for them to pay taxes to an idolatrous master; and by the flattering
promise which they derived from their ancient oracles, that a conquering
Messiah would soon arise, destined to break their fetters, and to invest
the favorites of heaven with the empire of the earth. It was by announcing
himself as their long-expected deliverer, and by calling on all the
descendants of Abraham to assert the hope of Isræl, that the famous
Barchochebas collected a formidable army, with which he resisted during
two years the power of the emperor Hadrian.
Notwithstanding these repeated provocations, the resentment of the Roman
princes expired after the victory; nor were their apprehensions continued
beyond the period of war and danger. By the general indulgence of
polytheism, and by the mild temper of Antoninus Pius, the Jews were
restored to their ancient privileges, and once more obtained the
permission of circumcising their children, with the easy restraint, that
they should never confer on any foreign proselyte that distinguishing mark
of the Hebrew race. The numerous remains of that people, though they were
still excluded from the precincts of Jerusalem, were permitted to form and
to maintain considerable establishments both in Italy and in the
provinces, to acquire the freedom of Rome, to enjoy municipal honors, and
to obtain at the same time an exemption from the burdensome and expensive
offices of society. The moderation or the contempt of the Romans gave a
legal sanction to the form of ecclesiastical police which was instituted
by the vanquished sect. The patriarch, who had fixed his residence at
Tiberias, was empowered to appoint his subordinate ministers and apostles,
to exercise a domestic jurisdiction, and to receive from his dispersed
brethren an annual contribution. New synagogues were frequently erected in
the principal cities of the empire; and the sabbaths, the fasts, and the
festivals, which were either commanded by the Mosaic law, or enjoined by
the traditions of the Rabbis, were celebrated in the most solemn and
public manner. Such gentle treatment insensibly assuaged the stern temper
of the Jews. Awakened from their dream of prophecy and conquest, they
assumed the behavior of peaceable and industrious subjects. Their
irreconcilable hatred of mankind, instead of flaming out in acts of blood
and violence, evaporated in less dangerous gratifications. They embraced
every opportunity of overreaching the idolaters in trade; and they
pronounced secret and ambiguous imprecations against the haughty kingdom
of Edom.
Since the Jews, who rejected with abhorrence the deities adored by their
sovereign and by their fellow-subjects, enjoyed, however, the free
exercise of their unsocial religion, there must have existed some other
cause, which exposed the disciples of Christ to those severities from
which the posterity of Abraham was exempt. The difference between them is
simple and obvious; but, according to the sentiments of antiquity, it was
of the highest importance. The Jews were a nation;
the Christians were a sect: and if it was
natural for every community to respect the sacred institutions of their
neighbors, it was incumbent on them to persevere in those of their
ancestors. The voice of oracles, the precepts of philosophers, and the
authority of the laws, unanimously enforced this national obligation. By
their lofty claim of superior sanctity the Jews might provoke the
Polytheists to consider them as an odious and impure race. By disdaining
the intercourse of other nations, they might deserve their contempt. The
laws of Moses might be for the most part frivolous or absurd; yet, since
they had been received during many ages by a large society, his followers
were justified by the example of mankind; and it was universally
acknowledged, that they had a right to practise what it would have been
criminal in them to neglect. But this principle, which protected the
Jewish synagogue, afforded not any favor or security to the primitive
church. By embracing the faith of the gospel, the Christians incurred the
supposed guilt of an unnatural and unpardonable offence. They dissolved
the sacred ties of custom and education, violated the religious
institutions of their country, and presumptuously despised whatever their
fathers had believed as true, or had reverenced as sacred. Nor was this
apostasy (if we may use the expression) merely of a partial or local kind;
since the pious deserter who withdrew himself from the temples of Egypt or
Syria, would equally disdain to seek an asylum in those of Athens or
Carthage. Every Christian rejected with contempt the superstitions of his
family, his city, and his province. The whole body of Christians
unanimously refused to hold any communion with the gods of Rome, of the
empire, and of mankind. It was in vain that the oppressed believer
asserted the inalienable rights of conscience and private judgment. Though
his situation might excite the pity, his arguments could never reach the
understanding, either of the philosophic or of the believing part of the
Pagan world. To their apprehensions, it was no less a matter of surprise,
that any individuals should entertain scruples against complying with the
established mode of worship, than if they had conceived a sudden
abhorrence to the manners, the dress, or the language of their native
country. *
The surprise of the Pagans was soon succeeded by resentment; and the most
pious of men were exposed to the unjust but dangerous imputation of
impiety. Malice and prejudice concurred in representing the Christians as
a society of atheists, who, by the most daring attack on the religious
constitution of the empire, had merited the severest animadversion of the
civil magistrate. They had separated themselves (they gloried in the
confession) from every mode of superstition which was received in any part
of the globe by the various temper of polytheism: but it was not
altogether so evident what deity, or what form of worship, they had
substituted to the gods and temples of antiquity. The pure and sublime
idea which they entertained of the Supreme Being escaped the gross
conception of the Pagan multitude, who were at a loss to discover a
spiritual and solitary God, that was neither represented under any
corporeal figure or visible symbol, nor was adored with the accustomed
pomp of libations and festivals, of altars and sacrifices. The sages of
Greece and Rome, who had elevated their minds to the contemplation of the
existence and attributes of the First Cause, were induced by reason or by
vanity to reserve for themselves and their chosen disciples the privilege
of this philosophical devotion. They were far from admitting the
prejudices of mankind as the standard of truth, but they considered them
as flowing from the original disposition of human nature; and they
supposed that any popular mode of faith and worship which presumed to
disclaim the assistance of the senses, would, in proportion as it receded
from superstition, find itself incapable of restraining the wanderings of
the fancy, and the visions of fanaticism. The careless glance which men of
wit and learning condescended to cast on the Christian revelation, served
only to confirm their hasty opinion, and to persuade them that the
principle, which they might have revered, of the Divine Unity, was defaced
by the wild enthusiasm, and annihilated by the airy speculations, of the
new sectaries. The author of a celebrated dialogue, which has been
attributed to Lucian, whilst he affects to treat the mysterious subject of
the Trinity in a style of ridicule and contempt, betrays his own ignorance
of the weakness of human reason, and of the inscrutable nature of the
divine perfections.
It might appear less surprising, that the founder of Christianity should
not only be revered by his disciples as a sage and a prophet, but that he
should be adored as a God. The Polytheists were disposed to adopt every
article of faith, which seemed to offer any resemblance, however distant
or imperfect, with the popular mythology; and the legends of Bacchus, of
Hercules, and of Æsculapius, had, in some measure, prepared their
imagination for the appearance of the Son of God under a human form. But
they were astonished that the Christians should abandon the temples of
those ancient heroes, who, in the infancy of the world, had invented arts,
instituted laws, and vanquished the tyrants or monsters who infested the
earth, in order to choose for the exclusive object of their religious
worship an obscure teacher, who, in a recent age, and among a barbarous
people, had fallen a sacrifice either to the malice of his own countrymen,
or to the jealousy of the Roman government. The Pagan multitude, reserving
their gratitude for temporal benefits alone, rejected the inestimable
present of life and immortality, which was offered to mankind by Jesus of
Nazareth. His mild constancy in the midst of cruel and voluntary
sufferings, his universal benevolence, and the sublime simplicity of his
actions and character, were insufficient, in the opinion of those carnal
men, to compensate for the want of fame, of empire, and of success; and
whilst they refused to acknowledge his stupendous triumph over the powers
of darkness and of the grave, they misrepresented, or they insulted, the
equivocal birth, wandering life, and ignominious death, of the divine
Author of Christianity.
The personal guilt which every Christian had contracted, in thus
preferring his private sentiment to the national religion, was aggravated
in a very high degree by the number and union of the criminals. It is well
known, and has been already observed, that Roman policy viewed with the
utmost jealousy and distrust any association among its subjects; and that
the privileges of private corporations, though formed for the most
harmless or beneficial purposes, were bestowed with a very sparing hand.
The religious assemblies of the Christians who had separated themselves
from the public worship, appeared of a much less innocent nature; they
were illegal in their principle, and in their consequences might become
dangerous; nor were the emperors conscious that they violated the laws of
justice, when, for the peace of society, they prohibited those secret and
sometimes nocturnal meetings. The pious disobedience of the Christians
made their conduct, or perhaps their designs, appear in a much more
serious and criminal light; and the Roman princes, who might perhaps have
suffered themselves to be disarmed by a ready submission, deeming their
honor concerned in the execution of their commands, sometimes attempted,
by rigorous punishments, to subdue this independent spirit, which boldly
acknowledged an authority superior to that of the magistrate. The extent
and duration of this spiritual conspiracy seemed to render it everyday
more deserving of his animadversion. We have already seen that the active
and successful zeal of the Christians had insensibly diffused them through
every province and almost every city of the empire. The new converts
seemed to renounce their family and country, that they might connect
themselves in an indissoluble band of union with a peculiar society, which
every where assumed a different character from the rest of mankind. Their
gloomy and austere aspect, their abhorrence of the common business and
pleasures of life, and their frequent predictions of impending calamities,
inspired the Pagans with the apprehension of some danger, which would
arise from the new sect, the more alarming as it was the more obscure.
"Whatever," says Pliny, "may be the principle of their conduct, their
inflexible obstinacy appeared deserving of punishment."
The precautions with which the disciples of Christ performed the offices
of religion were at first dictated by fear and necessity; but they were
continued from choice. By imitating the awful secrecy which reigned in the
Eleusinian mysteries, the Christians had flattered themselves that they
should render their sacred institutions more respectable in the eyes of
the Pagan world. But the event, as it often happens to the operations of
subtile policy, deceived their wishes and their expectations. It was
concluded, that they only concealed what they would have blushed to
disclose. Their mistaken prudence afforded an opportunity for malice to
invent, and for suspicious credulity to believe, the horrid tales which
described the Christians as the most wicked of human kind, who practised
in their dark recesses every abomination that a depraved fancy could
suggest, and who solicited the favor of their unknown God by the sacrifice
of every moral virtue. There were many who pretended to confess or to
relate the ceremonies of this abhorred society. It was asserted, "that a
new-born infant, entirely covered over with flour, was presented, like
some mystic symbol of initiation, to the knife of the proselyte, who
unknowingly inflicted many a secret and mortal wound on the innocent
victim of his error; that as soon as the cruel deed was perpetrated, the
sectaries drank up the blood, greedily tore asunder the quivering members,
and pledged themselves to eternal secrecy, by a mutual consciousness of
guilt. It was as confidently affirmed, that this inhuman sacrifice was
succeeded by a suitable entertainment, in which intemperance served as a
provocative to brutal lust; till, at the appointed moment, the lights were
suddenly extinguished, shame was banished, nature was forgotten; and, as
accident might direct, the darkness of the night was polluted by the
incestuous commerce of sisters and brothers, of sons and of mothers."
But the perusal of the ancient apologies was sufficient to remove even the
slightest suspicion from the mind of a candid adversary. The Christians,
with the intrepid security of innocence, appeal from the voice of rumor to
the equity of the magistrates. They acknowledge, that if any proof can be
produced of the crimes which calumny has imputed to them, they are worthy
of the most severe punishment. They provoke the punishment, and they
challenge the proof. At the same time they urge, with equal truth and
propriety, that the charge is not less devoid of probability, than it is
destitute of evidence; they ask, whether any one can seriously believe
that the pure and holy precepts of the gospel, which so frequently
restrain the use of the most lawful enjoyments, should inculcate the
practice of the most abominable crimes; that a large society should
resolve to dishonor itself in the eyes of its own members; and that a
great number of persons of either sex, and every age and character,
insensible to the fear of death or infamy, should consent to violate those
principles which nature and education had imprinted most deeply in their
minds. Nothing, it should seem, could weaken the force or destroy the
effect of so unanswerable a justification, unless it were the injudicious
conduct of the apologists themselves, who betrayed the common cause of
religion, to gratify their devout hatred to the domestic enemies of the
church. It was sometimes faintly insinuated, and sometimes boldly
asserted, that the same bloody sacrifices, and the same incestuous
festivals, which were so falsely ascribed to the orthodox believers, were
in reality celebrated by the Marcionites, by the Carpocratians, and by
several other sects of the Gnostics, who, notwithstanding they might
deviate into the paths of heresy, were still actuated by the sentiments of
men, and still governed by the precepts of Christianity. Accusations of a
similar kind were retorted upon the church by the schismatics who had
departed from its communion, and it was confessed on all sides, that the
most scandalous licentiousness of manners prevailed among great numbers of
those who affected the name of Christians. A Pagan magistrate, who
possessed neither leisure nor abilities to discern the almost
imperceptible line which divides the orthodox faith from heretical
pravity, might easily have imagined that their mutual animosity had
extorted the discovery of their common guilt. It was fortunate for the
repose, or at least for the reputation, of the first Christians, that the
magistrates sometimes proceeded with more temper and moderation than is
usually consistent with religious zeal, and that they reported, as the
impartial result of their judicial inquiry, that the sectaries, who had
deserted the established worship, appeared to them sincere in their
professions, and blameless in their manners; however they might incur, by
their absurd and excessive superstition, the censure of the laws.
History, which undertakes to record the transactions of the past, for the
instruction of future ages, would ill deserve that honorable office, if
she condescended to plead the cause of tyrants, or to justify the maxims
of persecution. It must, however, be acknowledged, that the conduct of the
emperors who appeared the least favorable to the primitive church, is by
no means so criminal as that of modern sovereigns, who have employed the
arm of violence and terror against the religious opinions of any part of
their subjects. From their reflections, or even from their own feelings, a
Charles V. or a Lewis XIV. might have acquired a just knowledge of the
rights of conscience, of the obligation of faith, and of the innocence of
error. But the princes and magistrates of ancient Rome were strangers to
those principles which inspired and authorized the inflexible obstinacy of
the Christians in the cause of truth, nor could they themselves discover
in their own breasts any motive which would have prompted them to refuse a
legal, and as it were a natural, submission to the sacred institutions of
their country. The same reason which contributes to alleviate the guilt,
must have tended to abate the vigor, of their persecutions. As they were
actuated, not by the furious zeal of bigots, but by the temperate policy
of legislators, contempt must often have relaxed, and humanity must
frequently have suspended, the execution of those laws which they enacted
against the humble and obscure followers of Christ. From the general view
of their character and motives we might naturally conclude: I. That a
considerable time elapsed before they considered the new sectaries as an
object deserving of the attention of government. II. That in the
conviction of any of their subjects who were accused of so very singular a
crime, they proceeded with caution and reluctance. III. That they were
moderate in the use of punishments; and, IV. That the afflicted church
enjoyed many intervals of peace and tranquility. Notwithstanding the
careless indifference which the most copious and the most minute of the
Pagan writers have shown to the affairs of the Christians, it may still be
in our power to confirm each of these probable suppositions, by the
evidence of authentic facts.
1. By the wise dispensation of Providence, a mysterious veil was cast over
the infancy of the church, which, till the faith of the Christians was
matured, and their numbers were multiplied, served to protect them not
only from the malice but even from the knowledge of the Pagan world. The
slow and gradual abolition of the Mosaic ceremonies afforded a safe and
innocent disguise to the more early proselytes of the gospel. As they
were, for the greater part, of the race of Abraham, they were
distinguished by the peculiar mark of circumcision, offered up their
devotions in the Temple of Jerusalem till its final destruction, and
received both the Law and the Prophets as the genuine inspirations of the
Deity. The Gentile converts, who by a spiritual adoption had been
associated to the hope of Isræl, were likewise confounded under the
garb and appearance of Jews, and as the Polytheists paid less regard to
articles of faith than to the external worship, the new sect, which
carefully concealed, or faintly announced, its future greatness and
ambition, was permitted to shelter itself under the general toleration
which was granted to an ancient and celebrated people in the Roman empire.
It was not long, perhaps, before the Jews themselves, animated with a
fiercer zeal and a more jealous faith, perceived the gradual separation of
their Nazarene brethren from the doctrine of the synagogue; and they would
gladly have extinguished the dangerous heresy in the blood of its
adherents. But the decrees of Heaven had already disarmed their malice;
and though they might sometimes exert the licentious privilege of
sedition, they no longer possessed the administration of criminal justice;
nor did they find it easy to infuse into the calm breast of a Roman
magistrate the rancor of their own zeal and prejudice. The provincial
governors declared themselves ready to listen to any accusation that might
affect the public safety; but as soon as they were informed that it was a
question not of facts but of words, a dispute relating only to the
interpretation of the Jewish laws and prophecies, they deemed it unworthy
of the majesty of Rome seriously to discuss the obscure differences which
might arise among a barbarous and superstitious people. The innocence of
the first Christians was protected by ignorance and contempt; and the
tribunal of the Pagan magistrate often proved their most assured refuge
against the fury of the synagogue. If indeed we were disposed to adopt the
traditions of a too credulous antiquity, we might relate the distant
peregrinations, the wonderful achievements, and the various deaths of the
twelve apostles: but a more accurate inquiry will induce us to doubt,
whether any of those persons who had been witnesses to the miracles of
Christ were permitted, beyond the limits of Palestine, to seal with their
blood the truth of their testimony. From the ordinary term of human life,
it may very naturally be presumed that most of them were deceased before
the discontent of the Jews broke out into that furious war, which was
terminated only by the ruin of Jerusalem. During a long period, from the
death of Christ to that memorable rebellion, we cannot discover any traces
of Roman intolerance, unless they are to be found in the sudden, the
transient, but the cruel persecution, which was exercised by Nero against
the Christians of the capital, thirty-five years after the former, and
only two years before the latter, of those great events. The character of
the philosophic historian, to whom we are principally indebted for the
knowledge of this singular transaction, would alone be sufficient to
recommend it to our most attentive consideration.
In the tenth year of the reign of Nero, the capital of the empire was
afflicted by a fire which raged beyond the memory or example of former
ages. The monuments of Grecian art and of Roman virtue, the trophies of
the Punic and Gallic wars, the most holy temples, and the most splendid
palaces, were involved in one common destruction. Of the fourteen regions
or quarters into which Rome was divided, four only subsisted entire, three
were levelled with the ground, and the remaining seven, which had
experienced the fury of the flames, displayed a melancholy prospect of
ruin and desolation. The vigilance of government appears not to have
neglected any of the precautions which might alleviate the sense of so
dreadful a calamity. The Imperial gardens were thrown open to the
distressed multitude, temporary buildings were erected for their
accommodation, and a plentiful supply of corn and provisions was
distributed at a very moderate price. The most generous policy seemed to
have dictated the edicts which regulated the disposition of the streets
and the construction of private houses; and as it usually happens, in an
age of prosperity, the conflagration of Rome, in the course of a few
years, produced a new city, more regular and more beautiful than the
former. But all the prudence and humanity affected by Nero on this
occasion were insufficient to preserve him from the popular suspicion.
Every crime might be imputed to the assassin of his wife and mother; nor
could the prince who prostituted his person and dignity on the theatre be
deemed incapable of the most extravagant folly. The voice of rumor accused
the emperor as the incendiary of his own capital; and as the most
incredible stories are the best adapted to the genius of an enraged
people, it was gravely reported, and firmly believed, that Nero, enjoying
the calamity which he had occasioned, amused himself with singing to his
lyre the destruction of ancient Troy. To divert a suspicion, which the
power of despotism was unable to suppress, the emperor resolved to
substitute in his own place some fictitious criminals. "With this view,"
continues Tacitus, "he inflicted the most exquisite tortures on those men,
who, under the vulgar appellation of Christians, were already branded with
deserved infamy. They derived their name and origin from Christ, who in
the reign of Tiberius had suffered death by the sentence of the procurator
Pontius Pilate. For a while this dire superstition was checked; but it
again burst forth; * and not only spread itself over Judæa, the
first seat of this mischievous sect, but was even introduced into Rome,
the common asylum which receives and protects whatever is impure, whatever
is atrocious. The confessions of those who were seized discovered a great
multitude of their accomplices, and they were all convicted, not so much
for the crime of setting fire to the city, as for their hatred of human
kind. They died in torments, and their torments were imbittered by insult
and derision. Some were nailed on crosses; others sewn up in the skins of
wild beasts, and exposed to the fury of dogs; others again, smeared over
with combustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate the
darkness of the night. The gardens of Nero were destined for the
melancholy spectacle, which was accompanied with a horse-race and honored
with the presence of the emperor, who mingled with the populace in the
dress and attitude of a charioteer. The guilt of the Christians deserved
indeed the most exemplary punishment, but the public abhorrence was
changed into commiseration, from the opinion that those unhappy wretches
were sacrificed, not so much to the public welfare, as to the cruelty of a
jealous tyrant." Those who survey with a curious eye the revolutions of
mankind, may observe, that the gardens and circus of Nero on the Vatican,
which were polluted with the blood of the first Christians, have been
rendered still more famous by the triumph and by the abuse of the
persecuted religion. On the same spot, a temple, which far surpasses the
ancient glories of the Capitol, has been since erected by the Christian
Pontiffs, who, deriving their claim of universal dominion from an humble
fisherman of Galilee, have succeeded to the throne of the Cæsars,
given laws to the barbarian conquerors of Rome, and extended their
spiritual jurisdiction from the coast of the Baltic to the shores of the
Pacific Ocean.
But it would be improper to dismiss this account of Nero's persecution,
till we have made some observations that may serve to remove the
difficulties with which it is perplexed, and to throw some light on the
subsequent history of the church.
1. The most sceptical criticism is obliged to respect the
truth of this extraordinary fact, and the integrity of this celebrated
passage of Tacitus. The former is confirmed by the diligent and accurate
Suetonius, who mentions the punishment which Nero inflicted on the
Christians, a sect of men who had embraced a new and criminal
superstition. The latter may be proved by the consent of the most ancient
manuscripts; by the inimitable character of the style of Tacitus by his
reputation, which guarded his text from the interpolations of pious fraud;
and by the purport of his narration, which accused the first Christians of
the most atrocious crimes, without insinuating that they possessed any
miraculous or even magical powers above the rest of mankind. 2.
Notwithstanding it is probable that Tacitus was born some years before the
fire of Rome, he could derive only from reading and conversation the
knowledge of an event which happened during his infancy. Before he gave
himself to the public, he calmly waited till his genius had attained its
full maturity, and he was more than forty years of age, when a grateful
regard for the memory of the virtuous Agricola extorted from him the most
early of those historical compositions which will delight and instruct the
most distant posterity. After making a trial of his strength in the life
of Agricola and the description of Germany, he conceived, and at length
executed, a more arduous work; the history of Rome, in thirty books, from
the fall of Nero to the accession of Nerva. The administration of Nerva
introduced an age of justice and propriety, which Tacitus had destined for
the occupation of his old age; but when he took a nearer view of his
subject, judging, perhaps, that it was a more honorable or a less
invidious office to record the vices of past tyrants, than to celebrate
the virtues of a reigning monarch, he chose rather to relate, under the
form of annals, the actions of the four immediate successors of Augustus.
To collect, to dispose, and to adorn a series of fourscore years, in an
immortal work, every sentence of which is pregnant with the deepest
observations and the most lively images, was an undertaking sufficient to
exercise the genius of Tacitus himself during the greatest part of his
life. In the last years of the reign of Trajan, whilst the victorious
monarch extended the power of Rome beyond its ancient limits, the
historian was describing, in the second and fourth books of his annals,
the tyranny of Tiberius; and the emperor Hadrian must have succeeded to
the throne, before Tacitus, in the regular prosecution of his work, could
relate the fire of the capital, and the cruelty of Nero towards the
unfortunate Christians. At the distance of sixty years, it was the duty of
the annalist to adopt the narratives of contemporaries; but it was natural
for the philosopher to indulge himself in the description of the origin,
the progress, and the character of the new sect, not so much according to
the knowledge or prejudices of the age of Nero, as according to those of
the time of Hadrian. 3 Tacitus very frequently trusts to
the curiosity or reflection of his readers to supply those intermediate
circumstances and ideas, which, in his extreme conciseness, he has thought
proper to suppress. We may therefore presume to imagine some probable
cause which could direct the cruelty of Nero against the Christians of
Rome, whose obscurity, as well as innocence, should have shielded them
from his indignation, and even from his notice. The Jews, who were
numerous in the capital, and oppressed in their own country, were a much
fitter object for the suspicions of the emperor and of the people: nor did
it seem unlikely that a vanquished nation, who already discovered their
abhorrence of the Roman yoke, might have recourse to the most atrocious
means of gratifying their implacable revenge. But the Jews possessed very
powerful advocates in the palace, and even in the heart of the tyrant; his
wife and mistress, the beautiful Poppæa, and a favorite player of
the race of Abraham, who had already employed their intercession in behalf
of the obnoxious people. In their room it was necessary to offer some
other victims, and it might easily be suggested that, although the genuine
followers of Moses were innocent of the fire of Rome, there had arisen
among them a new and pernicious sect of Galilæans, which was capable
of the most horrid crimes. Under the appellation of Galilæans, two
distinctions of men were confounded, the most opposite to each other in
their manners and principles; the disciples who had embraced the faith of
Jesus of Nazareth, and the zealots who had followed the standard of Judas
the Gaulonite. The former were the friends, the latter were the enemies,
of human kind; and the only resemblance between them consisted in the same
inflexible constancy, which, in the defence of their cause, rendered them
insensible of death and tortures. The followers of Judas, who impelled
their countrymen into rebellion, were soon buried under the ruins of
Jerusalem; whilst those of Jesus, known by the more celebrated name of
Christians, diffused themselves over the Roman empire. How natural was it
for Tacitus, in the time of Hadrian, to appropriate to the Christians the
guilt and the sufferings, * which he might, with far greater truth and
justice, have attributed to a sect whose odious memory was almost
extinguished! 4. Whatever opinion may be entertained of this conjecture,
(for it is no more than a conjecture,) it is evident that the effect, as
well as the cause, of Nero's persecution, was confined to the walls of
Rome, that the religious tenets of the Galilæans or Christians, were
never made a subject of punishment, or even of inquiry; and that, as the
idea of their sufferings was for a long time connected with the idea of
cruelty and injustice, the moderation of succeeding princes inclined them
to spare a sect, oppressed by a tyrant, whose rage had been usually
directed against virtue and innocence.
It is somewhat remarkable that the flames of war consumed, almost at the
same time, the temple of Jerusalem and the Capitol of Rome; and it appears
no less singular, that the tribute which devotion had destined to the
former, should have been converted by the power of an assaulting victor to
restore and adorn the splendor of the latter. The emperors levied a
general capitation tax on the Jewish people; and although the sum assessed
on the head of each individual was inconsiderable, the use for which it
was designed, and the severity with which it was exacted, were considered
as an intolerable grievance. Since the officers of the revenue extended
their unjust claim to many persons who were strangers to the blood or
religion of the Jews, it was impossible that the Christians, who had so
often sheltered themselves under the shade of the synagogue, should now
escape this rapacious persecution. Anxious as they were to avoid the
slightest infection of idolatry, their conscience forbade them to
contribute to the honor of that dæmon who had assumed the character
of the Capitoline Jupiter. As a very numerous though declining party among
the Christians still adhered to the law of Moses, their efforts to
dissemble their Jewish origin were detected by the decisive test of
circumcision; nor were the Roman magistrates at leisure to inquire into
the difference of their religious tenets. Among the Christians who were
brought before the tribunal of the emperor, or, as it seems more probable,
before that of the procurator of Judæa, two persons are said to have
appeared, distinguished by their extraction, which was more truly noble
than that of the greatest monarchs. These were the grandsons of St. Jude
the apostle, who himself was the brother of Jesus Christ. Their natural
pretensions to the throne of David might perhaps attract the respect of
the people, and excite the jealousy of the governor; but the meanness of
their garb, and the simplicity of their answers, soon convinced him that
they were neither desirous nor capable of disturbing the peace of the
Roman empire. They frankly confessed their royal origin, and their near
relation to the Messiah; but they disclaimed any temporal views, and
professed that his kingdom, which they devoutly expected, was purely of a
spiritual and angelic nature. When they were examined concerning their
fortune and occupation, they showed their hands, hardened with daily
labor, and declared that they derived their whole subsistence from the
cultivation of a farm near the village of Cocaba, of the extent of about
twenty-four English acres, and of the value of nine thousand drachms, or
three hundred pounds sterling. The grandsons of St. Jude were dismissed
with compassion and contempt.
But although the obscurity of the house of David might protect them from
the suspicions of a tyrant, the present greatness of his own family
alarmed the pusillanimous temper of Domitian, which could only be appeased
by the blood of those Romans whom he either feared, or hated, or esteemed.
Of the two sons of his uncle Flavius Sabinus, the elder was soon convicted
of treasonable intentions, and the younger, who bore the name of Flavius
Clemens, was indebted for his safety to his want of courage and ability.
The emperor for a long time, distinguished so harmless a kinsman by his
favor and protection, bestowed on him his own niece Domitilla, adopted the
children of that marriage to the hope of the succession, and invested
their father with the honors of the consulship.
But he had scarcely finished the term of his annual magistracy, when, on a
slight pretence, he was condemned and executed; Domitilla was banished to
a desolate island on the coast of Campania; and sentences either of death
or of confiscation were pronounced against a great number of who were
involved in the same accusation. The guilt imputed to their charge was
that of Atheism and Jewish manners;
a singular association of ideas, which cannot with any propriety be
applied except to the Christians, as they were obscurely and imperfectly
viewed by the magistrates and by the writers of that period. On the
strength of so probable an interpretation, and too eagerly admitting the
suspicions of a tyrant as an evidence of their honorable crime, the church
has placed both Clemens and Domitilla among its first martyrs, and has
branded the cruelty of Domitian with the name of the second persecution.
But this persecution (if it deserves that epithet) was of no long
duration. A few months after the death of Clemens, and the banishment of
Domitilla, Stephen, a freedman belonging to the latter, who had enjoyed
the favor, but who had not surely embraced the faith, of his mistress, *
assassinated the emperor in his palace. The memory of Domitian was
condemned by the senate; his acts were rescinded; his exiles recalled; and
under the gentle administration of Nerva, while the innocent were restored
to their rank and fortunes, even the most guilty either obtained pardon or
escaped punishment.
II. About ten years afterwards, under the reign of Trajan, the younger
Pliny was intrusted by his friend and master with the government of
Bithynia and Pontus. He soon found himself at a loss to determine by what
rule of justice or of law he should direct his conduct in the execution of
an office the most repugnant to his humanity. Pliny had never assisted at
any judicial proceedings against the Christians, with whose name alone he
seems to be acquainted; and he was totally uninformed with regard to the
nature of their guilt, the method of their conviction, and the degree of
their punishment. In this perplexity he had recourse to his usual
expedient, of submitting to the wisdom of Trajan an impartial, and, in
some respects, a favorable account of the new superstition, requesting the
emperor, that he would condescend to resolve his doubts, and to instruct
his ignorance. The life of Pliny had been employed in the acquisition of
learning, and in the business of the world. Since the age of nineteen he
had pleaded with distinction in the tribunals of Rome, filled a place in
the senate, had been invested with the honors of the consulship, and had
formed very numerous connections with every order of men, both in Italy
and in the provinces. From his ignorance therefore we may derive some
useful information. We may assure ourselves, that when he accepted the
government of Bithynia, there were no general laws or decrees of the
senate in force against the Christians; that neither Trajan nor any of his
virtuous predecessors, whose edicts were received into the civil and
criminal jurisprudence, had publicly declared their intentions concerning
the new sect; and that whatever proceedings had been carried on against
the Christians, there were none of sufficient weight and authority to
establish a precedent for the conduct of a Roman magistrate.
The answer of Trajan, to which the Christians of the succeeding age have
frequently appealed, discovers as much regard for justice and humanity as
could be reconciled with his mistaken notions of religious policy. Instead
of displaying the implacable zeal of an inquisitor, anxious to discover
the most minute particles of heresy, and exulting in the number of his
victims, the emperor expresses much more solicitude to protect the
security of the innocent, than to prevent the escape of the guilty. He
acknowledged the difficulty of fixing any general plan; but he lays down
two salutary rules, which often afforded relief and support to the
distressed Christians. Though he directs the magistrates to punish such
persons as are legally convicted, he prohibits them, with a very humane
inconsistency, from making any inquiries concerning the supposed
criminals. Nor was the magistrate allowed to proceed on every kind of
information. Anonymous charges the emperor rejects, as too repugnant to
the equity of his government; and he strictly requires, for the conviction
of those to whom the guilt of Christianity is imputed, the positive
evidence of a fair and open accuser. It is likewise probable, that the
persons who assumed so invidiuous an office, were obliged to declare the
grounds of their suspicions, to specify (both in respect to time and
place) the secret assemblies, which their Christian adversary had
frequented, and to disclose a great number of circumstances, which were
concealed with the most vigilant jealousy from the eye of the profane. If
they succeeded in their prosecution, they were exposed to the resentment
of a considerable and active party, to the censure of the more liberal
portion of mankind, and to the ignominy which, in every age and country,
has attended the character of an informer. If, on the contrary, they
failed in their proofs, they incurred the severe and perhaps capital
penalty, which, according to a law published by the emperor Hadrian, was
inflicted on those who falsely attributed to their fellow-citizens the
crime of Christianity. The violence of personal or superstitious animosity
might sometimes prevail over the most natural apprehensions of disgrace
and danger but it cannot surely be imagined, that accusations of so
unpromising an appearance were either lightly or frequently undertaken by
the Pagan subjects of the Roman empire. *
The expedient which was employed to elude the prudence of the laws,
affords a sufficient proof how effectually they disappointed the
mischievous designs of private malice or superstitious zeal. In a large
and tumultuous assembly, the restraints of fear and shame, so forcible on
the minds of individuals, are deprived of the greatest part of their
influence. The pious Christian, as he was desirous to obtain, or to
escape, the glory of martyrdom, expected, either with impatience or with
terror, the stated returns of the public games and festivals. On those
occasions the inhabitants of the great cities of the empire were collected
in the circus or the theatre, where every circumstance of the place, as
well as of the ceremony, contributed to kindle their devotion, and to
extinguish their humanity. Whilst the numerous spectators, crowned with
garlands, perfumed with incense, purified with the blood of victims, and
surrounded with the altars and statues of their tutelar deities, resigned
themselves to the enjoyment of pleasures, which they considered as an
essential part of their religious worship, they recollected, that the
Christians alone abhorred the gods of mankind, and by their absence and
melancholy on these solemn festivals, seemed to insult or to lament the
public felicity. If the empire had been afflicted by any recent calamity,
by a plague, a famine, or an unsuccessful war; if the Tyber had, or if the
Nile had not, risen beyond its banks; if the earth had shaken, or if the
temperate order of the seasons had been interrupted, the superstitious
Pagans were convinced that the crimes and the impiety of the Christians,
who were spared by the excessive lenity of the government, had at length
provoked the divine justice. It was not among a licentious and exasperated
populace, that the forms of legal proceedings could be observed; it was
not in an amphitheatre, stained with the blood of wild beasts and
gladiators, that the voice of compassion could be heard. The impatient
clamors of the multitude denounced the Christians as the enemies of gods
and men, doomed them to the severest tortures, and venturing to accuse by
name some of the most distinguished of the new sectaries, required with
irresistible vehemence that they should be instantly apprehended and cast
to the lions. The provincial governors and magistrates who presided in the
public spectacles were usually inclined to gratify the inclinations, and
to appease the rage, of the people, by the sacrifice of a few obnoxious
victims. But the wisdom of the emperors protected the church from the
danger of these tumultuous clamors and irregular accusations, which they
justly censured as repugnant both to the firmness and to the equity of
their administration. The edicts of Hadrian and of Antoninus Pius
expressly declared, that the voice of the multitude should never be
admitted as legal evidence to convict or to punish those unfortunate
persons who had embraced the enthusiasm of the Christians.
III. Punishment was not the inevitable consequence of conviction, and the
Christians, whose guilt was the most clearly proved by the testimony of
witnesses, or even by their voluntary confession, still retained in their
own power the alternative of life or death. It was not so much the past
offence, as the actual resistance, which excited the indignation of the
magistrate. He was persuaded that he offered them an easy pardon, since,
if they consented to cast a few grains of incense upon the altar, they
were dismissed from the tribunal in safety and with applause. It was
esteemed the duty of a humane judge to endeavor to reclaim, rather than to
punish, those deluded enthusiasts. Varying his tone according to the age,
the sex, or the situation of the prisoners, he frequently condescended to
set before their eyes every circumstance which could render life more
pleasing, or death more terrible; and to solicit, nay, to entreat, them,
that they would show some compassion to themselves, to their families, and
to their friends. If threats and persuasions proved ineffectual, he had
often recourse to violence; the scourge and the rack were called in to
supply the deficiency of argument, and every art of cruelty was employed
to subdue such inflexible, and, as it appeared to the Pagans, such
criminal, obstinacy. The ancient apologists of Christianity have censured,
with equal truth and severity, the irregular conduct of their persecutors
who, contrary to every principle of judicial proceeding, admitted the use
of torture, in order to obtain, not a confession, but a denial, of the
crime which was the object of their inquiry. The monks of succeeding ages,
who, in their peaceful solitudes, entertained themselves with diversifying
the deaths and sufferings of the primitive martyrs, have frequently
invented torments of a much more refined and ingenious nature. In
particular, it has pleased them to suppose, that the zeal of the Roman
magistrates, disdaining every consideration of moral virtue or public
decency, endeavored to seduce those whom they were unable to vanquish, and
that by their orders the most brutal violence was offered to those whom
they found it impossible to seduce. It is related, that females, who were
prepared to despise death, were sometimes condemned to a more severe
trial, and called upon to determine whether they set a higher value on
their religion or on their chastity. The youths to whose licentious
embraces they were abandoned, received a solemn exhortation from the
judge, to exert their most strenuous efforts to maintain the honor of
Venus against the impious virgin who refused to burn incense on her
altars. Their violence, however, was commonly disappointed, and the
seasonable interposition of some miraculous power preserved the chaste
spouses of Christ from the dishonor even of an involuntary defeat. We
should not indeed neglect to remark, that the more ancient as well as
authentic memorials of the church are seldom polluted with these
extravagant and indecent fictions.
The total disregard of truth and probability in the representation of
these primitive martyrdoms was occasioned by a very natural mistake. The
ecclesiastical writers of the fourth or fifth centuries ascribed to the
magistrates of Rome the same degree of implacable and unrelenting zeal
which filled their own breasts against the heretics or the idolaters of
their own times. It is not improbable that some of those persons who were
raised to the dignities of the empire, might have imbibed the prejudices
of the populace, and that the cruel disposition of others might
occasionally be stimulated by motives of avarice or of personal
resentment. But it is certain, and we may appeal to the grateful
confessions of the first Christians, that the greatest part of those
magistrates who exercised in the provinces the authority of the emperor,
or of the senate, and to whose hands alone the jurisdiction of life and
death was intrusted, behaved like men of polished manners and liberal
education, who respected the rules of justice, and who were conversant
with the precepts of philosophy. They frequently declined the odious task
of persecution, dismissed the charge with contempt, or suggested to the
accused Christian some legal evasion, by which he might elude the severity
of the laws. Whenever they were invested with a discretionary power, they
used it much less for the oppression, than for the relief and benefit of
the afflicted church. They were far from condemning all the Christians who
were accused before their tribunal, and very far from punishing with death
all those who were convicted of an obstinate adherence to the new
superstition. Contenting themselves, for the most part, with the milder
chastisements of imprisonment, exile, or slavery in the mines, they left
the unhappy victims of their justice some reason to hope, that a
prosperous event, the accession, the marriage, or the triumph of an
emperor, might speedily restore them, by a general pardon, to their former
state. The martyrs, devoted to immediate execution by the Roman
magistrates, appear to have been selected from the most opposite extremes.
They were either bishops and presbyters, the persons the most
distinguished among the Christians by their rank and influence, and whose
example might strike terror into the whole sect; or else they were the
meanest and most abject among them, particularly those of the servile
condition, whose lives were esteemed of little value, and whose sufferings
were viewed by the ancients with too careless an indifference. The learned
Origen, who, from his experience as well as reading, was intimately
acquainted with the history of the Christians, declares, in the most
express terms, that the number of martyrs was very inconsiderable. His
authority would alone be sufficient to annihilate that formidable army of
martyrs, whose relics, drawn for the most part from the catacombs of Rome,
have replenished so many churches, and whose marvellous achievements have
been the subject of so many volumes of Holy Romance. But the general
assertion of Origen may be explained and confirmed by the particular
testimony of his friend Dionysius, who, in the immense city of Alexandria,
and under the rigorous persecution of Decius, reckons only ten men and
seven women who suffered for the profession of the Christian name.
During the same period of persecution, the zealous, the eloquent, the
ambitious Cyprian governed the church, not only of Carthage, but even of
Africa. He possessed every quality which could engage the reverence of the
faithful, or provoke the suspicions and resentment of the Pagan
magistrates. His character as well as his station seemed to mark out that
holy prelate as the most distinguished object of envy and danger. The
experience, however, of the life of Cyprian, is sufficient to prove that
our fancy has exaggerated the perilous situation of a Christian bishop;
and the dangers to which he was exposed were less imminent than those
which temporal ambition is always prepared to encounter in the pursuit of
honors. Four Roman emperors, with their families, their favorites, and
their adherents, perished by the sword in the space of ten years, during
which the bishop of Carthage guided by his authority and eloquence the
councils of the African church. It was only in the third year of his
administration, that he had reason, during a few months, to apprehend the
severe edicts of Decius, the vigilance of the magistrate and the clamors
of the multitude, who loudly demanded, that Cyprian, the leader of the
Christians, should be thrown to the lions. Prudence suggested the
necessity of a temporary retreat, and the voice of prudence was obeyed. He
withdrew himself into an obscure solitude, from whence he could maintain a
constant correspondence with the clergy and people of Carthage; and,
concealing himself till the tempest was past, he preserved his life,
without relinquishing either his power or his reputation. His extreme
caution did not, however, escape the censure of the more rigid Christians,
who lamented, or the reproaches of his personal enemies, who insulted, a
conduct which they considered as a pusillanimous and criminal desertion of
the most sacred duty. The propriety of reserving himself for the future
exigencies of the church, the example of several holy bishops, and the
divine admonitions, which, as he declares himself, he frequently received
in visions and ecstacies, were the reasons alleged in his justification.
But his best apology may be found in the cheerful resolution, with which,
about eight years afterwards, he suffered death in the cause of religion.
The authentic history of his martyrdom has been recorded with unusual
candor and impartiality. A short abstract, therefore, of its most
important circumstances, will convey the clearest information of the
spirit, and of the forms, of the Roman persecutions.
When Valerian was consul for the third, and Gallienus for the fourth time,
Paternus, proconsul of Africa, summoned Cyprian to appear in his private
council-chamber. He there acquainted him with the Imperial mandate which
he had just received, that those who had abandoned the Roman religion
should immediately return to the practice of the ceremonies of their
ancestors. Cyprian replied without hesitation, that he was a Christian and
a bishop, devoted to the worship of the true and only Deity, to whom he
offered up his daily supplications for the safety and prosperity of the
two emperors, his lawful sovereigns. With modest confidence he pleaded the
privilege of a citizen, in refusing to give any answer to some invidious
and indeed illegal questions which the proconsul had proposed. A sentence
of banishment was pronounced as the penalty of Cyprian's disobedience; and
he was conducted without delay to Curubis, a free and maritime city of
Zeugitania, in a pleasant situation, a fertile territory, and at the
distance of about forty miles from Carthage. The exiled bishop enjoyed the
conveniences of life and the consciousness of virtue. His reputation was
diffused over Africa and Italy; an account of his behavior was published
for the edification of the Christian world; and his solitude was
frequently interrupted by the letters, the visits, and the congratulations
of the faithful. On the arrival of a new proconsul in the province the
fortune of Cyprian appeared for some time to wear a still more favorable
aspect. He was recalled from banishment; and though not yet permitted to
return to Carthage, his own gardens in the neighborhood of the capital
were assigned for the place of his residence.
At length, exactly one year after Cyprian was first apprehended, Galerius
Maximus, proconsul of Africa, received the Imperial warrant for the
execution of the Christian teachers. The bishop of Carthage was sensible
that he should be singled out for one of the first victims; and the
frailty of nature tempted him to withdraw himself, by a secret flight,
from the danger and the honor of martyrdom; * but soon recovering that
fortitude which his character required, he returned to his gardens, and
patiently expected the ministers of death. Two officers of rank, who were
intrusted with that commission, placed Cyprian between them in a chariot,
and as the proconsul was not then at leisure, they conducted him, not to a
prison, but to a private house in Carthage, which belonged to one of them.
An elegant supper was provided for the entertainment of the bishop, and
his Christian friends were permitted for the last time to enjoy his
society, whilst the streets were filled with a multitude of the faithful,
anxious and alarmed at the approaching fate of their spiritual father. In
the morning he appeared before the tribunal of the proconsul, who, after
informing himself of the name and situation of Cyprian, commanded him to
offer sacrifice, and pressed him to reflect on the consequences of his
disobedience. The refusal of Cyprian was firm and decisive; and the
magistrate, when he had taken the opinion of his council, pronounced with
some reluctance the sentence of death. It was conceived in the following
terms: "That Thascius Cyprianus should be immediately beheaded, as the
enemy of the gods of Rome, and as the chief and ringleader of a criminal
association, which he had seduced into an impious resistance against the
laws of the most holy emperors, Valerian and Gallienus." The manner of his
execution was the mildest and least painful that could be inflicted on a
person convicted of any capital offence; nor was the use of torture
admitted to obtain from the bishop of Carthage either the recantation of
his principles or the discovery of his accomplices.
As soon as the sentence was proclaimed, a general cry of "We will die with
him," arose at once among the listening multitude of Christians who waited
before the palace gates. The generous effusions of their zeal and their
affection were neither serviceable to Cyprian nor dangerous to themselves.
He was led away under a guard of tribunes and centurions, without
resistance and without insult, to the place of his execution, a spacious
and level plain near the city, which was already filled with great numbers
of spectators. His faithful presbyters and deacons were permitted to
accompany their holy bishop. * They assisted him in laying aside his upper
garment, spread linen on the ground to catch the precious relics of his
blood, and received his orders to bestow five-and-twenty pieces of gold on
the executioner. The martyr then covered his face with his hands, and at
one blow his head was separated from his body. His corpse remained during
some hours exposed to the curiosity of the Gentiles: but in the night it
was removed, and transported in a triumphal procession, and with a
splendid illumination, to the burial-place of the Christians. The funeral
of Cyprian was publicly celebrated without receiving any interruption from
the Roman magistrates; and those among the faithful, who had performed the
last offices to his person and his memory, were secure from the danger of
inquiry or of punishment. It is remarkable, that of so great a multitude
of bishops in the province of Africa, Cyprian was the first who was
esteemed worthy to obtain the crown of martyrdom.
It was in the choice of Cyprian, either to die a martyr, or to live an
apostate; but on the choice depended the alternative of honor or infamy.
Could we suppose that the bishop of Carthage had employed the profession
of the Christian faith only as the instrument of his avarice or ambition,
it was still incumbent on him to support the character he had assumed; and
if he possessed the smallest degree of manly fortitude, rather to expose
himself to the most cruel tortures, than by a single act to exchange the
reputation of a whole life, for the abhorrence of his Christian brethren,
and the contempt of the Gentile world. But if the zeal of Cyprian was
supported by the sincere conviction of the truth of those doctrines which
he preached, the crown of martyrdom must have appeared to him as an object
of desire rather than of terror. It is not easy to extract any distinct
ideas from the vague though eloquent declamations of the Fathers, or to
ascertain the degree of immortal glory and happiness which they
confidently promised to those who were so fortunate as to shed their blood
in the cause of religion. They inculcated with becoming diligence, that
the fire of martyrdom supplied every defect and expiated every sin; that
while the souls of ordinary Christians were obliged to pass through a slow
and painful purification, the triumphant sufferers entered into the
immediate fruition of eternal bliss, where, in the society of the
patriarchs, the apostles, and the prophets, they reigned with Christ, and
acted as his assessors in the universal judgment of mankind. The assurance
of a lasting reputation upon earth, a motive so congenial to the vanity of
human nature, often served to animate the courage of the martyrs. The
honors which Rome or Athens bestowed on those citizens who had fallen in
the cause of their country, were cold and unmeaning demonstrations of
respect, when compared with the ardent gratitude and devotion which the
primitive church expressed towards the victorious champions of the faith.
The annual commemoration of their virtues and sufferings was observed as a
sacred ceremony, and at length terminated in religious worship. Among the
Christians who had publicly confessed their religious principles, those
who (as it very frequently happened) had been dismissed from the tribunal
or the prisons of the Pagan magistrates, obtained such honors as were
justly due to their imperfect martyrdom and their generous resolution. The
most pious females courted the permission of imprinting kisses on the
fetters which they had worn, and on the wounds which they had received.
Their persons were esteemed holy, their decisions were admitted with
deference, and they too often abused, by their spiritual pride and
licentious manners, the preeminence which their zeal and intrepidity had
acquired. Distinctions like these, whilst they display the exalted merit,
betray the inconsiderable number of those who suffered, and of those who
died, for the profession of Christianity.
The sober discretion of the present age will more readily censure than
admire, but can more easily admire than imitate, the fervor of the first
Christians, who, according to the lively expressions of Sulpicius Severus,
desired martyrdom with more eagerness than his own contemporaries
solicited a bishopric. The epistles which Ignatius composed as he was
carried in chains through the cities of Asia, breathe sentiments the most
repugnant to the ordinary feelings of human nature. He earnestly beseeches
the Romans, that when he should be exposed in the amphitheatre, they would
not, by their kind but unseasonable intercession, deprive him of the crown
of glory; and he declares his resolution to provoke and irritate the wild
beasts which might be employed as the instruments of his death. Some
stories are related of the courage of martyrs, who actually performed what
Ignatius had intended; who exasperated the fury of the lions, pressed the
executioner to hasten his office, cheerfully leaped into the fires which
were kindled to consume them, and discovered a sensation of joy and
pleasure in the midst of the most exquisite tortures. Several examples
have been preserved of a zeal impatient of those restraints which the
emperors had provided for the security of the church. The Christians
sometimes supplied by their voluntary declaration the want of an accuser,
rudely disturbed the public service of paganism, and rushing in crowds
round the tribunal of the magistrates, called upon them to pronounce and
to inflict the sentence of the law. The behavior of the Christians was too
remarkable to escape the notice of the ancient philosophers; but they seem
to have considered it with much less admiration than astonishment.
Incapable of conceiving the motives which sometimes transported the
fortitude of believers beyond the bounds of prudence or reason, they
treated such an eagerness to die as the strange result of obstinate
despair, of stupid insensibility, or of superstitious frenzy. "Unhappy
men!" exclaimed the proconsul Antoninus to the Christians of Asia;
"unhappy men! if you are thus weary of your lives, is it so difficult for
you to find ropes and precipices?" He was extremely cautious (as it is
observed by a learned and pious historian) of punishing men who had found
no accusers but themselves, the Imperial laws not having made any
provision for so unexpected a case: condemning therefore a few as a
warning to their brethren, he dismissed the multitude with indignation and
contempt. Notwithstanding this real or affected disdain, the intrepid
constancy of the faithful was productive of more salutary effects on those
minds which nature or grace had disposed for the easy reception of
religious truth. On these melancholy occasions, there were many among the
Gentiles who pitied, who admired, and who were converted. The generous
enthusiasm was communicated from the sufferer to the spectators; and the
blood of martyrs, according to a well-known observation, became the seed
of the church.
But although devotion had raised, and eloquence continued to inflame, this
fever of the mind, it insensibly gave way to the more natural hopes and
fears of the human heart, to the love of life, the apprehension of pain,
and the horror of dissolution. The more prudent rulers of the church found
themselves obliged to restrain the indiscreet ardor of their followers,
and to distrust a constancy which too often abandoned them in the hour of
trial. As the lives of the faithful became less mortified and austere,
they were every day less ambitious of the honors of martyrdom; and the
soldiers of Christ, instead of distinguishing themselves by voluntary
deeds of heroism, frequently deserted their post, and fled in confusion
before the enemy whom it was their duty to resist. There were three
methods, however, of escaping the flames of persecution, which were not
attended with an equal degree of guilt: first, indeed, was generally
allowed to be innocent; the second was of a doubtful, or at least of a
venial, nature; but the third implied a direct and criminal apostasy from
the Christian faith.
I. A modern inquisitor would hear with surprise, that whenever an
information was given to a Roman magistrate of any person within his
jurisdiction who had embraced the sect of the Christians, the charge was
communicated to the party accused, and that a convenient time was allowed
him to settle his domestic concerns, and to prepare an answer to the crime
which was imputed to him. If he entertained any doubt of his own
constancy, such a delay afforded him the opportunity of preserving his
life and honor by flight, of withdrawing himself into some obscure
retirement or some distant province, and of patiently expecting the return
of peace and security. A measure so consonant to reason was soon
authorized by the advice and example of the most holy prelates; and seems
to have been censured by few except by the Montanists, who deviated into
heresy by their strict and obstinate adherence to the rigor of ancient
discipline. II. The provincial governors, whose zeal was less prevalent
than their avarice, had countenanced the practice of selling certificates,
(or libels, as they were called,) which attested, that the persons therein
mentioned had complied with the laws, and sacrificed to the Roman deities.
By producing these false declarations, the opulent and timid Christians
were enabled to silence the malice of an informer, and to reconcile in
some measure their safety with their religion. A slight penance atoned for
this profane dissimulation. * III. In every persecution there were great
numbers of unworthy Christians who publicly disowned or renounced the
faith which they had professed; and who confirmed the sincerity of their
abjuration, by the legal acts of burning incense or of offering
sacrifices. Some of these apostates had yielded on the first menace or
exhortation of the magistrate; whilst the patience of others had been
subdued by the length and repetition of tortures. The affrighted
countenances of some betrayed their inward remorse, while others advanced
with confidence and alacrity to the altars of the gods. But the disguise
which fear had imposed, subsisted no longer than the present danger. As
soon as the severity of the persecution was abated, the doors of the
churches were assailed by the returning multitude of penitents who
detested their idolatrous submission, and who solicited with equal ardor,
but with various success, their readmission into the society of
Christians.
IV. Notwithstanding the general rules established for the conviction and
punishment of the Christians, the fate of those sectaries, in an extensive
and arbitrary government, must still in a great measure, have depended on
their own behavior, the circumstances of the times, and the temper of
their supreme as well as subordinate rulers. Zeal might sometimes provoke,
and prudence might sometimes avert or assuage, the superstitious fury of
the Pagans. A variety of motives might dispose the provincial governors
either to enforce or to relax the execution of the laws; and of these
motives the most forcible was their regard not only for the public edicts,
but for the secret intentions of the emperor, a glance from whose eye was
sufficient to kindle or to extinguish the flames of persecution. As often
as any occasional severities were exercised in the different parts of the
empire, the primitive Christians lamented and perhaps magnified their own
sufferings; but the celebrated number of ten persecutions has been
determined by the ecclesiastical writers of the fifth century, who
possessed a more distinct view of the prosperous or adverse fortunes of
the church, from the age of Nero to that of Diocletian. The ingenious
parallels of the ten plagues of Egypt, and of the ten horns of the
Apocalypse, first suggested this calculation to their minds; and in their
application of the faith of prophecy to the truth of history, they were
careful to select those reigns which were indeed the most hostile to the
Christian cause. But these transient persecutions served only to revive
the zeal and to restore the discipline of the faithful; and the moments of
extraordinary rigor were compensated by much longer intervals of peace and
security. The indifference of some princes, and the indulgence of others,
permitted the Christians to enjoy, though not perhaps a legal, yet an
actual and public, toleration of their religion.
The apology of Tertullian contains two very ancient, very singular, but at
the same time very suspicious, instances of Imperial clemency; the edicts
published by Tiberius, and by Marcus Antoninus, and designed not only to
protect the innocence of the Christians, but even to proclaim those
stupendous miracles which had attested the truth of their doctrine. The
first of these examples is attended with some difficulties which might
perplex a sceptical mind. We are required to believe, that
Pontius Pilate informed the emperor of the unjust sentence of death which
he had pronounced against an innocent, and, as it appeared, a divine,
person; and that, without acquiring the merit, he exposed himself to the
danger of martyrdom; that Tiberius, who avowed
his contempt for all religion, immediately conceived the design of placing
the Jewish Messiah among the gods of Rome; that
his servile senate ventured to disobey the commands of their master;
that Tiberius, instead of resenting their
refusal, contented himself with protecting the Christians from the
severity of the laws, many years before such laws were enacted, or before
the church had assumed any distinct name or existence; and lastly, that
the memory of this extraordinary transaction was preserved in the most
public and authentic records, which escaped the knowledge of the
historians of Greece and Rome, and were only visible to the eyes of an
African Christian, who composed his apology one hundred and sixty years
after the death of Tiberius. The edict of Marcus Antoninus is supposed to
have been the effect of his devotion and gratitude for the miraculous
deliverance which he had obtained in the Marcomannic war. The distress of
the legions, the seasonable tempest of rain and hail, of thunder and of
lightning, and the dismay and defeat of the barbarians, have been
celebrated by the eloquence of several Pagan writers. If there were any
Christians in that army, it was natural that they should ascribe some
merit to the fervent prayers, which, in the moment of danger, they had
offered up for their own and the public safety. But we are still assured
by monuments of brass and marble, by the Imperial medals, and by the
Antonine column, that neither the prince nor the people entertained any
sense of this signal obligation, since they unanimously attribute their
deliverance to the providence of Jupiter, and to the interposition of
Mercury. During the whole course of his reign, Marcus despised the
Christians as a philosopher, and punished them as a sovereign. *
By a singular fatality, the hardships which they had endured under the
government of a virtuous prince, immediately ceased on the accession of a
tyrant; and as none except themselves had experienced the injustice of
Marcus, so they alone were protected by the lenity of Commodus. The
celebrated Marcia, the most favored of his concubines, and who at length
contrived the murder of her Imperial lover, entertained a singular
affection for the oppressed church; and though it was impossible that she
could reconcile the practice of vice with the precepts of the gospel, she
might hope to atone for the frailties of her sex and profession by
declaring herself the patroness of the Christians. Under the gracious
protection of Marcia, they passed in safety the thirteen years of a cruel
tyranny; and when the empire was established in the house of Severus, they
formed a domestic but more honorable connection with the new court. The
emperor was persuaded, that in a dangerous sickness, he had derived some
benefit, either spiritual or physical, from the holy oil, with which one
of his slaves had anointed him. He always treated with peculiar
distinction several persons of both sexes who had embraced the new
religion. The nurse as well as the preceptor of Caracalla were Christians;
* and if that young prince ever betrayed a sentiment of humanity, it was
occasioned by an incident, which, however trifling, bore some relation to
the cause of Christianity. Under the reign of Severus, the fury of the
populace was checked; the rigor of ancient laws was for some time
suspended; and the provincial governors were satisfied with receiving an
annual present from the churches within their jurisdiction, as the price,
or as the reward, of their moderation. The controversy concerning the
precise time of the celebration of Easter, armed the bishops of Asia and
Italy against each other, and was considered as the most important
business of this period of leisure and tranquillity. Nor was the peace of
the church interrupted, till the increasing numbers of proselytes seem at
length to have attracted the attention, and to have alienated the mind of
Severus. With the design of restraining the progress of Christianity, he
published an edict, which, though it was designed to affect only the new
converts, could not be carried into strict execution, without exposing to
danger and punishment the most zealous of their teachers and missionaries.
In this mitigated persecution we may still discover the indulgent spirit
of Rome and of Polytheism, which so readily admitted every excuse in favor
of those who practised the religious ceremonies of their fathers.
But the laws which Severus had enacted soon expired with the authority of
that emperor; and the Christians, after this accidental tempest, enjoyed a
calm of thirty-eight years. Till this period they had usually held their
assemblies in private houses and sequestered places. They were now
permitted to erect and consecrate convenient edifices for the purpose of
religious worship; to purchase lands, even at Rome itself, for the use of
the community; and to conduct the elections of their ecclesiastical
ministers in so public, but at the same time in so exemplary a manner, as
to deserve the respectful attention of the Gentiles. This long repose of
the church was accompanied with dignity. The reigns of those princes who
derived their extraction from the Asiatic provinces, proved the most
favorable to the Christians; the eminent persons of the sect, instead of
being reduced to implore the protection of a slave or concubine, were
admitted into the palace in the honorable characters of priests and
philosophers; and their mysterious doctrines, which were already diffused
among the people, insensibly attracted the curiosity of their sovereign.
When the empress Mammæa passed through Antioch, she expressed a
desire of conversing with the celebrated Origen, the fame of whose piety
and learning was spread over the East. Origen obeyed so flattering an
invitation, and though he could not expect to succeed in the conversion of
an artful and ambitious woman, she listened with pleasure to his eloquent
exhortations, and honorably dismissed him to his retirement in Palestine.
The sentiments of Mammæa were adopted by her son Alexander, and the
philosophic devotion of that emperor was marked by a singular but
injudicious regard for the Christian religion. In his domestic chapel he
placed the statues of Abraham, of Orpheus, of Apollonius, and of Christ,
as an honor justly due to those respectable sages who had instructed
mankind in the various modes of addressing their homage to the supreme and
universal Deity. A purer faith, as well as worship, was openly professed
and practised among his household. Bishops, perhaps for the first time,
were seen at court; and, after the death of Alexander, when the inhuman
Maximin discharged his fury on the favorites and servants of his
unfortunate benefactor, a great number of Christians of every rank and of
both sexes, were involved the promiscuous massacre, which, on their
account, has improperly received the name of Persecution. *
Notwithstanding the cruel disposition of Maximin, the effects of his
resentment against the Christians were of a very local and temporary
nature, and the pious Origen, who had been proscribed as a devoted victim,
was still reserved to convey the truths of the gospel to the ear of
monarchs. He addressed several edifying letters to the emperor Philip, to
his wife, and to his mother; and as soon as that prince, who was born in
the neighborhood of Palestine, had usurped the Imperial sceptre, the
Christians acquired a friend and a protector. The public and even partial
favor of Philip towards the sectaries of the new religion, and his
constant reverence for the ministers of the church, gave some color to the
suspicion, which prevailed in his own times, that the emperor himself was
become a convert to the faith; and afforded some grounds for a fable which
was afterwards invented, that he had been purified by confession and
penance from the guilt contracted by the murder of his innocent
predecessor. The fall of Philip introduced, with the change of masters, a
new system of government, so oppressive to the Christians, that their
former condition, ever since the time of Domitian, was represented as a
state of perfect freedom and security, if compared with the rigorous
treatment which they experienced under the short reign of Decius. The
virtues of that prince will scarcely allow us to suspect that he was
actuated by a mean resentment against the favorites of his predecessor;
and it is more reasonable to believe, that in the prosecution of his
general design to restore the purity of Roman manners, he was desirous of
delivering the empire from what he condemned as a recent and criminal
superstition. The bishops of the most considerable cities were removed by
exile or death: the vigilance of the magistrates prevented the clergy of
Rome during sixteen months from proceeding to a new election; and it was
the opinion of the Christians, that the emperor would more patiently
endure a competitor for the purple, than a bishop in the capital. Were it
possible to suppose that the penetration of Decius had discovered pride
under the disguise of humility, or that he could foresee the temporal
dominion which might insensibly arise from the claims of spiritual
authority, we might be less surprised, that he should consider the
successors of St. Peter, as the most formidable rivals to those of
Augustus.
The administration of Valerian was distinguished by a levity and
inconstancy ill suited to the gravity of the Roman Censor.
In the first part of his reign, he surpassed in clemency those princes who
had been suspected of an attachment to the Christian faith. In the last
three years and a half, listening to the insinuations of a minister
addicted to the superstitions of Egypt, he adopted the maxims, and
imitated the severity, of his predecessor Decius. The accession of
Gallienus, which increased the calamities of the empire, restored peace to
the church; and the Christians obtained the free exercise of their
religion by an edict addressed to the bishops, and conceived in such terms
as seemed to acknowledge their office and public character. The ancient
laws, without being formally repealed, were suffered to sink into
oblivion; and (excepting only some hostile intentions which are attributed
to the emperor Aurelian ) the disciples of Christ passed above forty years
in a state of prosperity, far more dangerous to their virtue than the
severest trials of persecution.
The story of Paul of Samosata, who filled the metropolitan see of Antioch,
while the East was in the hands of Odenathus and Zenobia, may serve to
illustrate the condition and character of the times. The wealth of that
prelate was a sufficient evidence of his guilt, since it was neither
derived from the inheritance of his fathers, nor acquired by the arts of
honest industry. But Paul considered the service of the church as a very
lucrative profession. His ecclesiastical jurisdiction was venal and
rapacious; he extorted frequent contributions from the most opulent of the
faithful, and converted to his own use a considerable part of the public
revenue. By his pride and luxury, the Christian religion was rendered
odious in the eyes of the Gentiles. His council chamber and his throne,
the splendor with which he appeared in public, the suppliant crowd who
solicited his attention, the multitude of letters and petitions to which
he dictated his answers, and the perpetual hurry of business in which he
was involved, were circumstances much better suited to the state of a
civil magistrate, than to the humility of a primitive bishop. When he
harangued his people from the pulpit, Paul affected the figurative style
and the theatrical gestures of an Asiatic sophist, while the cathedral
resounded with the loudest and most extravagant acclamations in the praise
of his divine eloquence. Against those who resisted his power, or refused
to flatter his vanity, the prelate of Antioch was arrogant, rigid, and
inexorable; but he relaxed the discipline, and lavished the treasures of
the church on his dependent clergy, who were permitted to imitate their
master in the gratification of every sensual appetite. For Paul indulged
himself very freely in the pleasures of the table, and he had received
into the episcopal palace two young and beautiful women as the constant
companions of his leisure moments.
Notwithstanding these scandalous vices, if Paul of Samosata had preserved
the purity of the orthodox faith, his reign over the capital of Syria
would have ended only with his life; and had a seasonable persecution
intervened, an effort of courage might perhaps have placed him in the rank
of saints and martyrs. * Some nice and subtle errors, which he imprudently
adopted and obstinately maintained, concerning the doctrine of the
Trinity, excited the zeal and indignation of the Eastern churches. From
Egypt to the Euxine Sea, the bishops were in arms and in motion. Several
councils were held, confutations were published, excommunications were
pronounced, ambiguous explanations were by turns accepted and refused,
treaties were concluded and violated, and at length Paul of Samosata was
degraded from his episcopal character, by the sentence of seventy or
eighty bishops, who assembled for that purpose at Antioch, and who,
without consulting the rights of the clergy or people, appointed a
successor by their own authority. The manifest irregularity of this
proceeding increased the numbers of the discontented faction; and as Paul,
who was no stranger to the arts of courts, had insinuated himself into the
favor of Zenobia, he maintained above four years the possession of the
episcopal house and office. * The victory of Aurelian changed the face of
the East, and the two contending parties, who applied to each other the
epithets of schism and heresy, were either commanded or permitted to plead
their cause before the tribunal of the conqueror. This public and very
singular trial affords a convincing proof that the existence, the
property, the privileges, and the internal policy of the Christians, were
acknowledged, if not by the laws, at least by the magistrates, of the
empire. As a Pagan and as a soldier, it could scarcely be expected that
Aurelian should enter into the discussion, whether the sentiments of Paul
or those of his adversaries were most agreeable to the true standard of
the orthodox faith. His determination, however, was founded on the general
principles of equity and reason. He considered the bishops of Italy as the
most impartial and respectable judges among the Christians, and as soon as
he was informed that they had unanimously approved the sentence of the
council, he acquiesced in their opinion, and immediately gave orders that
Paul should be compelled to relinquish the temporal possessions belonging
to an office, of which, in the judgment of his brethren, he had been
regularly deprived. But while we applaud the justice, we should not
overlook the policy, of Aurelian, who was desirous of restoring and
cementing the dependence of the provinces on the capital, by every means
which could bind the interest or prejudices of any part of his subjects.
Amidst the frequent revolutions of the empire, the Christians still
flourished in peace and prosperity; and notwithstanding a celebrated
æra of martyrs has been deduced from the accession of Diocletian,
the new system of policy, introduced and maintained by the wisdom of that
prince, continued, during more than eighteen years, to breathe the mildest
and most liberal spirit of religious toleration. The mind of Diocletian
himself was less adapted indeed to speculative inquiries, than to the
active labors of war and government. His prudence rendered him averse to
any great innovation, and though his temper was not very susceptible of
zeal or enthusiasm, he always maintained an habitual regard for the
ancient deities of the empire. But the leisure of the two empresses, of
his wife Prisca, and of Valeria, his daughter, permitted them to listen
with more attention and respect to the truths of Christianity, which in
every age has acknowledged its important obligations to female devotion.
The principal eunuchs, Lucian and Dorotheus, Gorgonius and Andrew, who
attended the person, possessed the favor, and governed the household of
Diocletian, protected by their powerful influence the faith which they had
embraced. Their example was imitated by many of the most considerable
officers of the palace, who, in their respective stations, had the care of
the Imperial ornaments, of the robes, of the furniture, of the jewels, and
even of the private treasury; and, though it might sometimes be incumbent
on them to accompany the emperor when he sacrificed in the temple, they
enjoyed, with their wives, their children, and their slaves, the free
exercise of the Christian religion. Diocletian and his colleagues
frequently conferred the most important offices on those persons who
avowed their abhorrence for the worship of the gods, but who had displayed
abilities proper for the service of the state. The bishops held an
honorable rank in their respective provinces, and were treated with
distinction and respect, not only by the people, but by the magistrates
themselves. Almost in every city, the ancient churches were found
insufficient to contain the increasing multitude of proselytes; and in
their place more stately and capacious edifices were erected for the
public worship of the faithful. The corruption of manners and principles,
so forcibly lamented by Eusebius, may be considered, not only as a
consequence, but as a proof, of the liberty which the Christians enjoyed
and abused under the reign of Diocletian. Prosperity had relaxed the
nerves of discipline. Fraud, envy, and malice prevailed in every
congregation. The presbyters aspired to the episcopal office, which every
day became an object more worthy of their ambition. The bishops, who
contended with each other for ecclesiastical preeminence, appeared by
their conduct to claim a secular and tyrannical power in the church; and
the lively faith which still distinguished the Christians from the
Gentiles, was shown much less in their lives, than in their controversial
writings.
Notwithstanding this seeming security, an attentive observer might discern
some symptoms that threatened the church with a more violent persecution
than any which she had yet endured. The zeal and rapid progress of the
Christians awakened the Polytheists from their supine indifference in the
cause of those deities, whom custom and education had taught them to
revere. The mutual provocations of a religious war, which had already
continued above two hundred years, exasperated the animosity of the
contending parties. The Pagans were incensed at the rashness of a recent
and obscure sect, which presumed to accuse their countrymen of error, and
to devote their ancestors to eternal misery. The habits of justifying the
popular mythology against the invectives of an implacable enemy, produced
in their minds some sentiments of faith and reverence for a system which
they had been accustomed to consider with the most careless levity. The
supernatural powers assumed by the church inspired at the same time terror
and emulation. The followers of the established religion intrenched
themselves behind a similar fortification of prodigies; invented new modes
of sacrifice, of expiation, and of initiation; attempted to revive the
credit of their expiring oracles; and listened with eager credulity to
every impostor, who flattered their prejudices by a tale of wonders. Both
parties seemed to acknowledge the truth of those miracles which were
claimed by their adversaries; and while they were contented with ascribing
them to the arts of magic, and to the power of dæmons, they mutually
concurred in restoring and establishing the reign of superstition.
Philosophy, her most dangerous enemy, was now converted into her most
useful ally. The groves of the academy, the gardens of Epicurus, and even
the portico of the Stoics, were almost deserted, as so many different
schools of scepticism or impiety; and many among the Romans were desirous
that the writings of Cicero should be condemned and suppressed by the
authority of the senate. The prevailing sect of the new Platonicians
judged it prudent to connect themselves with the priests, whom perhaps
they despised, against the Christians, whom they had reason to fear. These
fashionable Philosophers prosecuted the design of extracting allegorical
wisdom from the fictions of the Greek poets; instituted mysterious rites
of devotion for the use of their chosen disciples; recommended the worship
of the ancient gods as the emblems or ministers of the Supreme Deity, and
composed against the faith of the gospel many elaborate treatises, which
have since been committed to the flames by the prudence of orthodox
emperors.
Although the policy of Diocletian and the humanity of Constantius inclined
them to preserve inviolate the maxims of toleration, it was soon
discovered that their two associates, Maximian and Galerius, entertained
the most implacable aversion for the name and religion of the Christians.
The minds of those princes had never been enlightened by science;
education had never softened their temper. They owed their greatness to
their swords, and in their most elevated fortune they still retained their
superstitious prejudices of soldiers and peasants. In the general
administration of the provinces they obeyed the laws which their
benefactor had established; but they frequently found occasions of
exercising within their camp and palaces a secret persecution, for which
the imprudent zeal of the Christians sometimes offered the most specious
pretences. A sentence of death was executed upon Maximilianus, an African
youth, who had been produced by his own father *before the magistrate as a
sufficient and legal recruit, but who obstinately persisted in declaring,
that his conscience would not permit him to embrace the profession of a
soldier. It could scarcely be expected that any government should suffer
the action of Marcellus the Centurion to pass with impunity. On the day of
a public festival, that officer threw away his belt, his arms, and the
ensigns of his office, and exclaimed with a loud voice, that he would obey
none but Jesus Christ the eternal King, and that he renounced forever the
use of carnal weapons, and the service of an idolatrous master. The
soldiers, as soon as they recovered from their astonishment, secured the
person of Marcellus. He was examined in the city of Tingi by the president
of that part of Mauritania; and as he was convicted by his own confession,
he was condemned and beheaded for the crime of desertion. Examples of such
a nature savor much less of religious persecution than of martial or even
civil law; but they served to alienate the mind of the emperors, to
justify the severity of Galerius, who dismissed a great number of
Christian officers from their employments; and to authorize the opinion,
that a sect of enthusiastics, which avowed principles so repugnant to the
public safety, must either remain useless, or would soon become dangerous,
subjects of the empire.
After the success of the Persian war had raised the hopes and the
reputation of Galerius, he passed a winter with Diocletian in the palace
of Nicomedia; and the fate of Christianity became the object of their
secret consultations. The experienced emperor was still inclined to pursue
measures of lenity; and though he readily consented to exclude the
Christians from holding any employments in the household or the army, he
urged in the strongest terms the danger as well as cruelty of shedding the
blood of those deluded fanatics. Galerius at length extorted from him the
permission of summoning a council, composed of a few persons the most
distinguished in the civil and military departments of the state. The
important question was agitated in their presence, and those ambitious
courtiers easily discerned, that it was incumbent on them to second, by
their eloquence, the importunate violence of the Cæsar. It may be
presumed, that they insisted on every topic which might interest the
pride, the piety, or the fears, of their sovereign in the destruction of
Christianity. Perhaps they represented, that the glorious work of the
deliverance of the empire was left imperfect, as long as an independent
people was permitted to subsist and multiply in the heart of the
provinces. The Christians, (it might specially be alleged,) renouncing the
gods and the institutions of Rome, had constituted a distinct republic,
which might yet be suppressed before it had acquired any military force;
but which was already governed by its own laws and magistrates, was
possessed of a public treasure, and was intimately connected in all its
parts by the frequent assemblies of the bishops, to whose decrees their
numerous and opulent congregations yielded an implicit obedience.
Arguments like these may seem to have determined the reluctant mind of
Diocletian to embrace a new system of persecution; but though we may
suspect, it is not in our power to relate, the secret intrigues of the
palace, the private views and resentments, the jealousy of women or
eunuchs, and all those trifling but decisive causes which so often
influence the fate of empires, and the councils of the wisest monarchs.
The pleasure of the emperors was at length signified to the Christians,
who, during the course of this melancholy winter, had expected, with
anxiety, the result of so many secret consultations. The twenty-third of
February, which coincided with the Roman festival of the Terminalia, was
appointed (whether from accident or design) to set bounds to the progress
of Christianity. At the earliest dawn of day, the Prætorian præfect,
accompanied by several generals, tribunes, and officers of the revenue,
repaired to the principal church of Nicomedia, which was situated on an
eminence in the most populous and beautiful part of the city. The doors
were instantly broke open; they rushed into the sanctuary; and as they
searched in vain for some visible object of worship, they were obliged to
content themselves with committing to the flames the volumes of the holy
Scripture. The ministers of Diocletian were followed by a numerous body of
guards and pioneers, who marched in order of battle, and were provided
with all the instruments used in the destruction of fortified cities. By
their incessant labor, a sacred edifice, which towered above the Imperial
palace, and had long excited the indignation and envy of the Gentiles, was
in a few hours levelled with the ground.
The next day the general edict of persecution was published; and though
Diocletian, still averse to the effusion of blood, had moderated the fury
of Galerius, who proposed, that every one refusing to offer sacrifice
should immediately be burnt alive, the penalties inflicted on the
obstinacy of the Christians might be deemed sufficiently rigorous and
effectual. It was enacted, that their churches, in all the provinces of
the empire, should be demolished to their foundations; and the punishment
of death was denounced against all who should presume to hold any secret
assemblies for the purpose of religious worship. The philosophers, who now
assumed the unworthy office of directing the blind zeal of persecution,
had diligently studied the nature and genius of the Christian religion;
and as they were not ignorant that the speculative doctrines of the faith
were supposed to be contained in the writings of the prophets, of the
evangelists, and of the apostles, they most probably suggested the order,
that the bishops and presbyters should deliver all their sacred books into
the hands of the magistrates; who were commanded, under the severest
penalties, to burn them in a public and solemn manner. By the same edict,
the property of the church was at once confiscated; and the several parts
of which it might consist were either sold to the highest bidder, united
to the Imperial domain, bestowed on the cities and corporations, or
granted to the solicitations of rapacious courtiers. After taking such
effectual measures to abolish the worship, and to dissolve the government
of the Christians, it was thought necessary to subject to the most
intolerable hardships the condition of those perverse individuals who
should still reject the religion of nature, of Rome, and of their
ancestors. Persons of a liberal birth were declared incapable of holding
any honors or employments; slaves were forever deprived of the hopes of
freedom, and the whole body of the people were put out of the protection
of the law. The judges were authorized to hear and to determine every
action that was brought against a Christian. But the Christians were not
permitted to complain of any injury which they themselves had suffered;
and thus those unfortunate sectaries were exposed to the severity, while
they were excluded from the benefits, of public justice. This new species
of martyrdom, so painful and lingering, so obscure and ignominious, was,
perhaps, the most proper to weary the constancy of the faithful: nor can
it be doubted that the passions and interest of mankind were disposed on
this occasion to second the designs of the emperors. But the policy of a
well-ordered government must sometimes have interposed in behalf of the
oppressed Christians; * nor was it possible for the Roman princes entirely
to remove the apprehension of punishment, or to connive at every act of
fraud and violence, without exposing their own authority and the rest of
their subjects to the most alarming dangers.
This edict was scarcely exhibited to the public view, in the most
conspicuous place of Nicomedia, before it was torn down by the hands of a
Christian, who expressed at the same time, by the bitterest invectives,
his contempt as well as abhorrence for such impious and tyrannical
governors. His offence, according to the mildest laws, amounted to
treason, and deserved death. And if it be true that he was a person of
rank and education, those circumstances could serve only to aggravate his
guilt. He was burnt, or rather roasted, by a slow fire; and his
executioners, zealous to revenge the personal insult which had been
offered to the emperors, exhausted every refinement of cruelty, without
being able to subdue his patience, or to alter the steady and insulting
smile which in his dying agonies he still preserved in his countenance.
The Christians, though they confessed that his conduct had not been
strictly conformable to the laws of prudence, admired the divine fervor of
his zeal; and the excessive commendations which they lavished on the
memory of their hero and martyr, contributed to fix a deep impression of
terror and hatred in the mind of Diocletian.
His fears were soon alarmed by the view of a danger from which he very
narrowly escaped. Within fifteen days the palace of Nicomedia, and even
the bed-chamber of Diocletian, were twice in flames; and though both times
they were extinguished without any material damage, the singular
repetition of the fire was justly considered as an evident proof that it
had not been the effect of chance or negligence. The suspicion naturally
fell on the Christians; and it was suggested, with some degree of
probability, that those desperate fanatics, provoked by their present
sufferings, and apprehensive of impending calamities, had entered into a
conspiracy with their faithful brethren, the eunuchs of the palace,
against the lives of two emperors, whom they detested as the
irreconcilable enemies of the church of God. Jealousy and resentment
prevailed in every breast, but especially in that of Diocletian. A great
number of persons, distinguished either by the offices which they had
filled, or by the favor which they had enjoyed, were thrown into prison.
Every mode of torture was put in practice, and the court, as well as city,
was polluted with many bloody executions. But as it was found impossible
to extort any discovery of this mysterious transaction, it seems incumbent
on us either to presume the innocence, or to admire the resolution, of the
sufferers. A few days afterwards Galerius hastily withdrew himself from
Nicomedia, declaring, that if he delayed his departure from that devoted
palace, he should fall a sacrifice to the rage of the Christians. The
ecclesiastical historians, from whom alone we derive a partial and
imperfect knowledge of this persecution, are at a loss how to account for
the fears and dangers of the emperors. Two of these writers, a prince and
a rhetorician, were eye-witnesses of the fire of Nicomedia. The one
ascribes it to lightning, and the divine wrath; the other affirms, that it
was kindled by the malice of Galerius himself.
As the edict against the Christians was designed for a general law of the
whole empire, and as Diocletian and Galerius, though they might not wait
for the consent, were assured of the concurrence, of the Western princes,
it would appear more consonant to our ideas of policy, that the governors
of all the provinces should have received secret instructions to publish,
on one and the same day, this declaration of war within their respective
departments. It was at least to be expected, that the convenience of the
public highways and established posts would have enabled the emperors to
transmit their orders with the utmost despatch from the palace of
Nicomedia to the extremities of the Roman world; and that they would not
have suffered fifty days to elapse, before the edict was published in
Syria, and near four months before it was signified to the cities of
Africa. This delay may perhaps be imputed to the cautious temper of
Diocletian, who had yielded a reluctant consent to the measures of
persecution, and who was desirous of trying the experiment under his more
immediate eye, before he gave way to the disorders and discontent which it
must inevitably occasion in the distant provinces. At first, indeed, the
magistrates were restrained from the effusion of blood; but the use of
every other severity was permitted, and even recommended to their zeal;
nor could the Christians, though they cheerfully resigned the ornaments of
their churches, resolve to interrupt their religious assemblies, or to
deliver their sacred books to the flames. The pious obstinacy of Felix, an
African bishop, appears to have embarrassed the subordinate ministers of
the government. The curator of his city sent him in chains to the
proconsul. The proconsul transmitted him to the Prætorian præfect
of Italy; and Felix, who disdained even to give an evasive answer, was at
length beheaded at Venusia, in Lucania, a place on which the birth of
Horace has conferred fame. This precedent, and perhaps some Imperial
rescript, which was issued in consequence of it, appeared to authorize the
governors of provinces, in punishing with death the refusal of the
Christians to deliver up their sacred books. There were undoubtedly many
persons who embraced this opportunity of obtaining the crown of martyrdom;
but there were likewise too many who purchased an ignominious life, by
discovering and betraying the holy Scripture into the hands of infidels. A
great number even of bishops and presbyters acquired, by this criminal
compliance, the opprobrious epithet of Traditors;
and their offence was productive of much present scandal and of much
future discord in the African church.
The copies as well as the versions of Scripture, were already so
multiplied in the empire, that the most severe inquisition could no longer
be attended with any fatal consequences; and even the sacrifice of those
volumes, which, in every congregation, were preserved for public use,
required the consent of some treacherous and unworthy Christians. But the
ruin of the churches was easily effected by the authority of the
government, and by the labor of the Pagans. In some provinces, however,
the magistrates contented themselves with shutting up the places of
religious worship. In others, they more literally complied with the terms
of the edict; and after taking away the doors, the benches, and the
pulpit, which they burnt as it were in a funeral pile, they completely
demolished the remainder of the edifice. It is perhaps to this melancholy
occasion that we should apply a very remarkable story, which is related
with so many circumstances of variety and improbability, that it serves
rather to excite than to satisfy our curiosity. In a small town in
Phrygia, of whose name as well as situation we are left ignorant, it
should seem that the magistrates and the body of the people had embraced
the Christian faith; and as some resistance might be apprehended to the
execution of the edict, the governor of the province was supported by a
numerous detachment of legionaries. On their approach the citizens threw
themselves into the church, with the resolution either of defending by
arms that sacred edifice, or of perishing in its ruins. They indignantly
rejected the notice and permission which was given them to retire, till
the soldiers, provoked by their obstinate refusal, set fire to the
building on all sides, and consumed, by this extraordinary kind of
martyrdom, a great number of Phrygians, with their wives and children.
Some slight disturbances, though they were suppressed almost as soon as
excited, in Syria and the frontiers of Armenia, afforded the enemies of
the church a very plausible occasion to insinuate, that those troubles had
been secretly fomented by the intrigues of the bishops, who had already
forgotten their ostentatious professions of passive and unlimited
obedience. The resentment, or the fears, of Diocletian, at length
transported him beyond the bounds of moderation, which he had hitherto
preserved, and he declared, in a series of cruel edicts, his intention of
abolishing the Christian name. By the first of these edicts, the governors
of the provinces were directed to apprehend all persons of the
ecclesiastical order; and the prisons, destined for the vilest criminals,
were soon filled with a multitude of bishops, presbyters, deacons,
readers, and exorcists. By a second edict, the magistrates were commanded
to employ every method of severity, which might reclaim them from their
odious superstition, and oblige them to return to the established worship
of the gods. This rigorous order was extended, by a subsequent edict, to
the whole body of Christians, who were exposed to a violent and general
persecution. Instead of those salutary restraints, which had required the
direct and solemn testimony of an accuser, it became the duty as well as
the interest of the Imperial officers to discover, to pursue, and to
torment the most obnoxious among the faithful. Heavy penalties were
denounced against all who should presume to save a prescribed sectary from
the just indignation of the gods, and of the emperors. Yet,
notwithstanding the severity of this law, the virtuous courage of many of
the Pagans, in concealing their friends or relations, affords an honorable
proof, that the rage of superstition had not extinguished in their minds
the sentiments of nature and humanity.
Diocletian had no sooner published his edicts against the Christians,
than, as if he had been desirous of committing to other hands the work of
persecution, he divested himself of the Imperial purple. The character and
situation of his colleagues and successors sometimes urged them to enforce
and sometimes inclined them to suspend, the execution of these rigorous
laws; nor can we acquire a just and distinct idea of this important period
of ecclesiastical history, unless we separately consider the state of
Christianity, in the different parts of the empire, during the space of
ten years, which elapsed between the first edicts of Diocletian and the
final peace of the church.
The mild and humane temper of Constantius was averse to the oppression of
any part of his subjects. The principal offices of his palace were
exercised by Christians. He loved their persons, esteemed their fidelity,
and entertained not any dislike to their religious principles. But as long
as Constantius remained in the subordinate station of Cæsar, it was
not in his power openly to reject the edicts of Diocletian, or to disobey
the commands of Maximian. His authority contributed, however, to alleviate
the sufferings which he pitied and abhorred. He consented with reluctance
to the ruin of the churches; but he ventured to protect the Christians
themselves from the fury of the populace, and from the rigor of the laws.
The provinces of Gaul (under which we may probably include those of
Britain) were indebted for the singular tranquillity which they enjoyed,
to the gentle interposition of their sovereign. But Datianus, the
president or governor of Spain, actuated either by zeal or policy, chose
rather to execute the public edicts of the emperors, than to understand
the secret intentions of Constantius; and it can scarcely be doubted, that
his provincial administration was stained with the blood of a few martyrs.
The elevation of Constantius to the supreme and independent dignity of
Augustus, gave a free scope to the exercise of his virtues, and the
shortness of his reign did not prevent him from establishing a system of
toleration, of which he left the precept and the example to his son
Constantine. His fortunate son, from the first moment of his accession,
declaring himself the protector of the church, at length deserved the
appellation of the first emperor who publicly professed and established
the Christian religion. The motives of his conversion, as they may
variously be deduced from benevolence, from policy, from conviction, or
from remorse, and the progress of the revolution, which, under his
powerful influence and that of his sons, rendered Christianity the
reigning religion of the Roman empire, will form a very interesting and
important chapter in the present volume of this history. At present it may
be sufficient to observe, that every victory of Constantine was productive
of some relief or benefit to the church.
The provinces of Italy and Africa experienced a short but violent
persecution. The rigorous edicts of Diocletian were strictly and
cheerfully executed by his associate Maximian, who had long hated the
Christians, and who delighted in acts of blood and violence. In the autumn
of the first year of the persecution, the two emperors met at Rome to
celebrate their triumph; several oppressive laws appear to have issued
from their secret consultations, and the diligence of the magistrates was
animated by the presence of their sovereigns. After Diocletian had
divested himself of the purple, Italy and Africa were administered under
the name of Severus, and were exposed, without defence, to the implacable
resentment of his master Galerius. Among the martyrs of Rome, Adauctus
deserves the notice of posterity. He was of a noble family in Italy, and
had raised himself, through the successive honors of the palace, to the
important office of treasurer of the private Jemesnes. Adauctus is the
more remarkable for being the only person of rank and distinction who
appears to have suffered death, during the whole course of this general
persecution.
The revolt of Maxentius immediately restored peace to the churches of
Italy and Africa; and the same tyrant who oppressed every other class of
his subjects, showed himself just, humane, and even partial, towards the
afflicted Christians. He depended on their gratitude and affection, and
very naturally presumed, that the injuries which they had suffered, and
the dangers which they still apprehended from his most inveterate enemy,
would secure the fidelity of a party already considerable by their numbers
and opulence. Even the conduct of Maxentius towards the bishops of Rome
and Carthage may be considered as the proof of his toleration, since it is
probable that the most orthodox princes would adopt the same measures with
regard to their established clergy. Marcellus, the former of these
prelates, had thrown the capital into confusion, by the severe penance
which he imposed on a great number of Christians, who, during the late
persecution, had renounced or dissembled their religion. The rage of
faction broke out in frequent and violent seditions; the blood of the
faithful was shed by each other's hands, and the exile of Marcellus, whose
prudence seems to have been less eminent than his zeal, was found to be
the only measure capable of restoring peace to the distracted church of
Rome. The behavior of Mensurius, bishop of Carthage, appears to have been
still more reprehensible. A deacon of that city had published a libel
against the emperor. The offender took refuge in the episcopal palace; and
though it was somewhat early to advance any claims of ecclesiastical
immunities, the bishop refused to deliver him up to the officers of
justice. For this treasonable resistance, Mensurius was summoned to court,
and instead of receiving a legal sentence of death or banishment, he was
permitted, after a short examination, to return to his diocese. Such was
the happy condition of the Christian subjects of Maxentius, that whenever
they were desirous of procuring for their own use any bodies of martyrs,
they were obliged to purchase them from the most distant provinces of the
East. A story is related of Aglæ, a Roman lady, descended from a
consular family, and possessed of so ample an estate, that it required the
management of seventy-three stewards. Among these Boniface was the
favorite of his mistress; and as Aglæ mixed love with devotion, it
is reported that he was admitted to share her bed. Her fortune enabled her
to gratify the pious desire of obtaining some sacred relics from the East.
She intrusted Boniface with a considerable sum of gold, and a large
quantity of aromatics; and her lover, attended by twelve horsemen and
three covered chariots, undertook a remote pilgrimage, as far as Tarsus in
Cilicia.
The sanguinary temper of Galerius, the first and principal author of the
persecution, was formidable to those Christians whom their misfortunes had
placed within the limits of his dominions; and it may fairly be presumed
that many persons of a middle rank, who were not confined by the chains
either of wealth or of poverty, very frequently deserted their native
country, and sought a refuge in the milder climate of the West. As long as
he commanded only the armies and provinces of Illyricum, he could with
difficulty either find or make a considerable number of martyrs, in a
warlike country, which had entertained the missionaries of the gospel with
more coldness and reluctance than any other part of the empire. But when
Galerius had obtained the supreme power, and the government of the East,
he indulged in their fullest extent his zeal and cruelty, not only in the
provinces of Thrace and Asia, which acknowledged his immediate
jurisdiction, but in those of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, where Maximin
gratified his own inclination, by yielding a rigorous obedience to the
stern commands of his benefactor. The frequent disappointments of his
ambitious views, the experience of six years of persecution, and the
salutary reflections which a lingering and painful distemper suggested to
the mind of Galerius, at length convinced him that the most violent
efforts of despotism are insufficient to extirpate a whole people, or to
subdue their religious prejudices. Desirous of repairing the mischief that
he had occasioned, he published in his own name, and in those of Licinius
and Constantine, a general edict, which, after a pompous recital of the
Imperial titles, proceeded in the following manner:—
"Among the important cares which have occupied our mind for the utility
and preservation of the empire, it was our intention to correct and
reestablish all things according to the ancient laws and public discipline
of the Romans. We were particularly desirous of reclaiming into the way of
reason and nature, the deluded Christians who had renounced the religion
and ceremonies instituted by their fathers; and presumptuously despising
the practice of antiquity, had invented extravagant laws and opinions,
according to the dictates of their fancy, and had collected a various
society from the different provinces of our empire. The edicts, which we
have published to enforce the worship of the gods, having exposed many of
the Christians to danger and distress, many having suffered death, and
many more, who still persist in their impious folly, being left destitute
of any public exercise of religion, we are
disposed to extend to those unhappy men the effects of our wonted
clemency. We permit them therefore freely to profess their private
opinions, and to assemble in their conventicles without fear or
molestation, provided always that they preserve a due respect to the
established laws and government. By another rescript we shall signify our
intentions to the judges and magistrates; and we hope that our indulgence
will engage the Christians to offer up their prayers to the Deity whom
they adore, for our safety and prosperity for their own, and for that of
the republic." It is not usually in the language of edicts and manifestos
that we should search for the real character or the secret motives of
princes; but as these were the words of a dying emperor, his situation,
perhaps, may be admitted as a pledge of his sincerity.
When Galerius subscribed this edict of toleration, he was well assured
that Licinius would readily comply with the inclinations of his friend and
benefactor, and that any measures in favor of the Christians would obtain
the approbation of Constantine. But the emperor would not venture to
insert in the preamble the name of Maximin, whose consent was of the
greatest importance, and who succeeded a few days afterwards to the
provinces of Asia. In the first six months, however, of his new reign,
Maximin affected to adopt the prudent counsels of his predecessor; and
though he never condescended to secure the tranquillity of the church by a
public edict, Sabinus, his Prætorian præfect, addressed a
circular letter to all the governors and magistrates of the provinces,
expatiating on the Imperial clemency, acknowledging the invincible
obstinacy of the Christians, and directing the officers of justice to
cease their ineffectual prosecutions, and to connive at the secret
assemblies of those enthusiasts. In consequence of these orders, great
numbers of Christians were released from prison, or delivered from the
mines. The confessors, singing hymns of triumph, returned into their own
countries; and those who had yielded to the violence of the tempest,
solicited with tears of repentance their readmission into the bosom of the
church.
But this treacherous calm was of short duration; nor could the Christians
of the East place any confidence in the character of their sovereign.
Cruelty and superstition were the ruling passions of the soul of Maximin.
The former suggested the means, the latter pointed out the objects of
persecution. The emperor was devoted to the worship of the gods, to the
study of magic, and to the belief of oracles. The prophets or
philosophers, whom he revered as the favorites of Heaven, were frequently
raised to the government of provinces, and admitted into his most secret
councils. They easily convinced him that the Christians had been indebted
for their victories to their regular discipline, and that the weakness of
polytheism had principally flowed from a want of union and subordination
among the ministers of religion. A system of government was therefore
instituted, which was evidently copied from the policy of the church. In
all the great cities of the empire, the temples were repaired and
beautified by the order of Maximin, and the officiating priests of the
various deities were subjected to the authority of a superior pontiff
destined to oppose the bishop, and to promote the cause of paganism. These
pontiffs acknowledged, in their turn, the supreme jurisdiction of the
metropolitans or high priests of the province, who acted as the immediate
vicegerents of the emperor himself. A white robe was the ensign of their
dignity; and these new prelates were carefully selected from the most
noble and opulent families. By the influence of the magistrates, and of
the sacerdotal order, a great number of dutiful addresses were obtained,
particularly from the cities of Nicomedia, Antioch, and Tyre, which
artfully represented the well-known intentions of the court as the general
sense of the people; solicited the emperor to consult the laws of justice
rather than the dictates of his clemency; expressed their abhorrence of
the Christians, and humbly prayed that those impious sectaries might at
least be excluded from the limits of their respective territories. The
answer of Maximin to the address which he obtained from the citizens of
Tyre is still extant. He praises their zeal and devotion in terms of the
highest satisfaction, descants on the obstinate impiety of the Christians,
and betrays, by the readiness with which he consents to their banishment,
that he considered himself as receiving, rather than as conferring, an
obligation. The priests as well as the magistrates were empowered to
enforce the execution of his edicts, which were engraved on tables of
brass; and though it was recommended to them to avoid the effusion of
blood, the most cruel and ignominious punishments were inflicted on the
refractory Christians.
The Asiatic Christians had every thing to dread from the severity of a
bigoted monarch who prepared his measures of violence with such deliberate
policy. But a few months had scarcely elapsed before the edicts published
by the two Western emperors obliged Maximin to suspend the prosecution of
his designs: the civil war which he so rashly undertook against Licinius
employed all his attention; and the defeat and death of Maximin soon
delivered the church from the last and most implacable of her enemies.
In this general view of the persecution, which was first authorized by the
edicts of Diocletian, I have purposely refrained from describing the
particular sufferings and deaths of the Christian martyrs. It would have
been an easy task, from the history of Eusebius, from the declamations of
Lactantius, and from the most ancient acts, to collect a long series of
horrid and disgustful pictures, and to fill many pages with racks and
scourges, with iron hooks and red-hot beds, and with all the variety of
tortures which fire and steel, savage beasts, and more savage
executioners, could inflict upon the human body. These melancholy scenes
might be enlivened by a crowd of visions and miracles destined either to
delay the death, to celebrate the triumph, or to discover the relics of
those canonized saints who suffered for the name of Christ. But I cannot
determine what I ought to transcribe, till I am satisfied how much I ought
to believe. The gravest of the ecclesiastical historians, Eusebius
himself, indirectly confesses, that he has related whatever might redound
to the glory, and that he has suppressed all that could tend to the
disgrace, of religion. Such an acknowledgment will naturally excite a
suspicion that a writer who has so openly violated one of the fundamental
laws of history, has not paid a very strict regard to the observance of
the other; and the suspicion will derive additional credit from the
character of Eusebius, * which was less tinctured with credulity, and more
practised in the arts of courts, than that of almost any of his
contemporaries. On some particular occasions, when the magistrates were
exasperated by some personal motives of interest or resentment, the rules
of prudence, and perhaps of decency, to overturn the altars, to pour out
imprecations against the emperors, or to strike the judge as he sat on his
tribunal, it may be presumed, that every mode of torture which cruelty
could invent, or constancy could endure, was exhausted on those devoted
victims. Two circumstances, however, have been unwarily mentioned, which
insinuate that the general treatment of the Christians, who had been
apprehended by the officers of justice, was less intolerable than it is
usually imagined to have been. 1. The confessors who were condemned to
work in the mines were permitted by the humanity or the negligence of
their keepers to build chapels, and freely to profess their religion in
the midst of those dreary habitations. 2. The bishops were obliged to
check and to censure the forward zeal of the Christians, who voluntarily
threw themselves into the hands of the magistrates. Some of these were
persons oppressed by poverty and debts, who blindly sought to terminate a
miserable existence by a glorious death. Others were allured by the hope
that a short confinement would expiate the sins of a whole life; and
others again were actuated by the less honorable motive of deriving a
plentiful subsistence, and perhaps a considerable profit, from the alms
which the charity of the faithful bestowed on the prisoners. After the
church had triumphed over all her enemies, the interest as well as vanity
of the captives prompted them to magnify the merit of their respective
sufferings. A convenient distance of time or place gave an ample scope to
the progress of fiction; and the frequent instances which might be alleged
of holy martyrs, whose wounds had been instantly healed, whose strength
had been renewed, and whose lost members had miraculously been restored,
were extremely convenient for the purpose of removing every difficulty,
and of silencing every objection. The most extravagant legends, as they
conduced to the honor of the church, were applauded by the credulous
multitude, countenanced by the power of the clergy, and attested by the
suspicious evidence of ecclesiastical history.
The vague descriptions of exile and imprisonment, of pain and torture, are
so easily exaggerated or softened by the pencil of an artful orator, *
that we are naturally induced to inquire into a fact of a more distinct
and stubborn kind; the number of persons who suffered death in consequence
of the edicts published by Diocletian, his associates, and his successors.
The recent legendaries record whole armies and cities, which were at once
swept away by the undistinguishing rage of persecution. The more ancient
writers content themselves with pouring out a liberal effusion of loose
and tragical invectives, without condescending to ascertain the precise
number of those persons who were permitted to seal with their blood their
belief of the gospel. From the history of Eusebius, it may, however, be
collected, that only nine bishops were punished with death; and we are
assured, by his particular enumeration of the martyrs of Palestine, that
no more than ninety-two Christians were entitled to that honorable
appellation. As we are unacquainted with the degree of episcopal zeal and
courage which prevailed at that time, it is not in our power to draw any
useful inferences from the former of these facts: but the latter may serve
to justify a very important and probable conclusion. According to the
distribution of Roman provinces, Palestine may be considered as the
sixteenth part of the Eastern empire: and since there were some governors,
who from a real or affected clemency had preserved their hands unstained
with the blood of the faithful, it is reasonable to believe, that the
country which had given birth to Christianity, produced at least the
sixteenth part of the martyrs who suffered death within the dominions of
Galerius and Maximin; the whole might consequently amount to about fifteen
hundred, a number which, if it is equally divided between the ten years of
the persecution, will allow an annual consumption of one hundred and fifty
martyrs. Allotting the same proportion to the provinces of Italy, Africa,
and perhaps Spain, where, at the end of two or three years, the rigor of
the penal laws was either suspended or abolished, the multitude of
Christians in the Roman empire, on whom a capital punishment was inflicted
by a judicial, sentence, will be reduced to somewhat less than two
thousand persons. Since it cannot be doubted that the Christians were more
numerous, and their enemies more exasperated, in the time of Diocletian,
than they had ever been in any former persecution, this probable and
moderate computation may teach us to estimate the number of primitive
saints and martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the important purpose of
introducing Christianity into the world.
We shall conclude this chapter by a melancholy truth, which obtrudes
itself on the reluctant mind; that even admitting, without hesitation or
inquiry, all that history has recorded, or devotion has feigned, on the
subject of martyrdoms, it must still be acknowledged, that the Christians,
in the course of their intestine dissensions, have inflicted far greater
severities on each other, than they had experienced from the zeal of
infidels. During the ages of ignorance which followed the subversion of
the Roman empire in the West, the bishops of the Imperial city extended
their dominion over the laity as well as clergy of the Latin church. The
fabric of superstition which they had erected, and which might long have
defied the feeble efforts of reason, was at length assaulted by a crowd of
daring fanatics, who from the twelfth to the sixteenth century assumed the
popular character of reformers. The church of Rome defended by violence
the empire which she had acquired by fraud; a system of peace and
benevolence was soon disgraced by proscriptions, war, massacres, and the
institution of the holy office. And as the reformers were animated by the
love of civil as well as of religious freedom, the Catholic princes
connected their own interest with that of the clergy, and enforced by fire
and the sword the terrors of spiritual censures. In the Netherlands alone,
more than one hundred thousand of the subjects of Charles V. are said to
have suffered by the hand of the executioner; and this extraordinary
number is attested by Grotius, a man of genius and learning, who preserved
his moderation amidst the fury of contending sects, and who composed the
annals of his own age and country, at a time when the invention of
printing had facilitated the means of intelligence, and increased the
danger of detection. If we are obliged to submit our belief to the
authority of Grotius, it must be allowed, that the number of Protestants,
who were executed in a single province and a single reign, far exceeded
that of the primitive martyrs in the space of three centuries, and of the
Roman empire. But if the improbability of the fact itself should prevail
over the weight of evidence; if Grotius should be convicted of
exaggerating the merit and sufferings of the Reformers; we shall be
naturally led to inquire what confidence can be placed in the doubtful and
imperfect monuments of ancient credulity; what degree of credit can be
assigned to a courtly bishop, and a passionate declaimer, * who, under the
protection of Constantine, enjoyed the exclusive privilege of recording
the persecutions inflicted on the Christians by the vanquished rivals or
disregarded predecessors of their gracious sovereign.
Foundation Of Constantinople.—Political System Constantine, And His Successors.—Military Discipline.—The Palace.—The Finances.
The unfortunate Licinius was the last rival who opposed the greatness, and
the last captive who adorned the triumph, of Constantine. After a tranquil
and prosperous reign, the conqueror bequeathed to his family the
inheritance of the Roman empire; a new capital, a new policy, and a new
religion; and the innovations which he established have been embraced and
consecrated by succeeding generations. The age of the great Constantine
and his sons is filled with important events; but the historian must be
oppressed by their number and variety, unless he diligently separates from
each other the scenes which are connected only by the order of time. He
will describe the political institutions that gave strength and stability
to the empire, before he proceeds to relate the wars and revolutions which
hastened its decline. He will adopt the division unknown to the ancients
of civil and ecclesiastical affairs: the victory of the Christians, and
their intestine discord, will supply copious and distinct materials both
for edification and for scandal.
After the defeat and abdication of Licinius, his victorious rival
proceeded to lay the foundations of a city destined to reign in future
times, the mistress of the East, and to survive the empire and religion of
Constantine. The motives, whether of pride or of policy, which first
induced Diocletian to withdraw himself from the ancient seat of
government, had acquired additional weight by the example of his
successors, and the habits of forty years. Rome was insensibly confounded
with the dependent kingdoms which had once acknowledged her supremacy; and
the country of the Cæsars was viewed with cold indifference by a
martial prince, born in the neighborhood of the Danube, educated in the
courts and armies of Asia, and invested with the purple by the legions of
Britain. The Italians, who had received Constantine as their deliverer,
submissively obeyed the edicts which he sometimes condescended to address
to the senate and people of Rome; but they were seldom honored with the
presence of their new sovereign. During the vigor of his age, Constantine,
according to the various exigencies of peace and war, moved with slow
dignity, or with active diligence, along the frontiers of his extensive
dominions; and was always prepared to take the field either against a
foreign or a domestic enemy. But as he gradually reached the summit of
prosperity and the decline of life, he began to meditate the design of
fixing in a more permanent station the strength as well as majesty of the
throne. In the choice of an advantageous situation, he preferred the
confines of Europe and Asia; to curb with a powerful arm the barbarians
who dwelt between the Danube and the Tanais; to watch with an eye of
jealousy the conduct of the Persian monarch, who indignantly supported the
yoke of an ignominious treaty. With these views, Diocletian had selected
and embellished the residence of Nicomedia: but the memory of Diocletian
was justly abhorred by the protector of the church: and Constantine was
not insensible to the ambition of founding a city which might perpetuate
the glory of his own name. During the late operations of the war against
Licinius, he had sufficient opportunity to contemplate, both as a soldier
and as a statesman, the incomparable position of Byzantium; and to observe
how strongly it was guarded by nature against a hostile attack, whilst it
was accessible on every side to the benefits of commercial intercourse.
Many ages before Constantine, one of the most judicious historians of
antiquity had described the advantages of a situation, from whence a
feeble colony of Greeks derived the command of the sea, and the honors of
a flourishing and independent republic.
If we survey Byzantium in the extent which it acquired with the august
name of Constantinople, the figure of the Imperial city may be represented
under that of an unequal triangle. The obtuse point, which advances
towards the east and the shores of Asia, meets and repels the waves of the
Thracian Bosphorus. The northern side of the city is bounded by the
harbor; and the southern is washed by the Propontis, or Sea of Marmara.
The basis of the triangle is opposed to the west, and terminates the
continent of Europe. But the admirable form and division of the
circumjacent land and water cannot, without a more ample explanation, be
clearly or sufficiently understood.
The winding channel through which the waters of the Euxine flow with a
rapid and incessant course towards the Mediterranean, received the
appellation of Bosphorus, a name not less celebrated in the history, than
in the fables, of antiquity. A crowd of temples and of votive altars,
profusely scattered along its steep and woody banks, attested the
unskilfulness, the terrors, and the devotion of the Grecian navigators,
who, after the example of the Argonauts, explored the dangers of the
inhospitable Euxine. On these banks tradition long preserved the memory of
the palace of Phineus, infested by the obscene harpies; and of the sylvan
reign of Amycus, who defied the son of Leda to the combat of the cestus.
The straits of the Bosphorus are terminated by the Cyanean rocks, which,
according to the description of the poets, had once floated on the face of
the waters; and were destined by the gods to protect the entrance of the
Euxine against the eye of profane curiosity. From the Cyanean rocks to the
point and harbor of Byzantium, the winding length of the Bosphorus extends
about sixteen miles, and its most ordinary breadth may be computed at
about one mile and a half. The new castles of
Europe and Asia are constructed, on either continent, upon the foundations
of two celebrated temples, of Serapis and of Jupiter Urius. The oldcastles,
a work of the Greek emperors, command the narrowest part of the channel in
a place where the opposite banks advance within five hundred paces of each
other. These fortresses were destroyed and strengthened by Mahomet the
Second, when he meditated the siege of Constantinople: but the Turkish
conqueror was most probably ignorant, that near two thousand years before
his reign, continents had been joined by a bridge of boats. At a small distance from the
old castles we discover the little town of Chrysopolis, or Scutari, which
may almost be considered as the Asiatic suburb of Constantinople. The
Bosphorus, as it begins to open into the Propontis, passes between
Byzantium and Chalcedon. The latter of those cities was built by the
Greeks, a few years before the former; and the blindness of its founders,
who overlooked the superior advantages of the opposite coast, has been
stigmatized by a proverbial expression of contempt.
The harbor of Constantinople, which may be considered as an arm of the
Bosphorus, obtained, in a very remote period, the denomination of the
Golden Horn. The curve which it describes might
be compared to the horn of a stag, or as it should seem, with more
propriety, to that of an ox. The epithet of golden
was expressive of the riches which every wind wafted from the most distant
countries into the secure and capacious port of Constantinople. The River
Lycus, formed by the conflux of two little streams, pours into the harbor
a perpetual supply of fresh water, which serves to cleanse the bottom, and
to invite the periodical shoals of fish to seek their retreat in that
convenient recess. As the vicissitudes of tides are scarcely felt in those
seas, the constant depth of the harbor allows goods to be landed on the
quays without the assistance of boats; and it has been observed, that in
many places the largest vessels may rest their prows against the houses,
while their sterns are floating in the water. From the mouth of the Lycus
to that of the harbor, this arm of the Bosphorus is more than seven miles
in length. The entrance is about five hundred yards broad, and a strong
chain could be occasionally drawn across it, to guard the port and city
from the attack of a hostile navy.
Between the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, the shores of Europe and Asia,
receding on either side, enclose the sea of Marmara, which was known to
the ancients by the denomination of Propontis. The navigation from the
issue of the Bosphorus to the entrance of the Hellespont is about one
hundred and twenty miles. Those who steer their westward course through
the middle of the Propontis, and at once descry the high lands of Thrace
and Bithynia, and never lose sight of the lofty summit of Mount Olympus,
covered with eternal snows. They leave on the left a deep gulf, at the
bottom of which Nicomedia was seated, the Imperial residence of
Diocletian; and they pass the small islands of Cyzicus and Proconnesus
before they cast anchor at Gallipoli; where the sea, which separates Asia
from Europe, is again contracted into a narrow channel.
The geographers who, with the most skilful accuracy, have surveyed the
form and extent of the Hellespont, assign about sixty miles for the
winding course, and about three miles for the ordinary breadth of those
celebrated straits. But the narrowest part of the channel is found to the
northward of the old Turkish castles between the cities of Sestus and
Abydus. It was here that the adventurous Leander braved the passage of the
flood for the possession of his mistress. It was here likewise, in a place
where the distance between the opposite banks cannot exceed five hundred
paces, that Xerxes imposed a stupendous bridge of boats, for the purpose
of transporting into Europe a hundred and seventy myriads of barbarians. A
sea contracted within such narrow limits may seem but ill to deserve the
singular epithet of broad, which Homer, as well
as Orpheus, has frequently bestowed on the Hellespont. * But our ideas of
greatness are of a relative nature: the traveller, and especially the
poet, who sailed along the Hellespont, who pursued the windings of the
stream, and contemplated the rural scenery, which appeared on every side
to terminate the prospect, insensibly lost the remembrance of the sea; and
his fancy painted those celebrated straits, with all the attributes of a
mighty river flowing with a swift current, in the midst of a woody and
inland country, and at length, through a wide mouth, discharging itself
into the Ægean or Archipelago. Ancient Troy, seated on a an eminence
at the foot of Mount Ida, overlooked the mouth of the Hellespont, which
scarcely received an accession of waters from the tribute of those
immortal rivulets the Simois and Scamander. The Grecian camp had stretched
twelve miles along the shore from the Sigæan to the Rhætean
promontory; and the flanks of the army were guarded by the bravest chiefs
who fought under the banners of Agamemnon. The first of those promontories
was occupied by Achilles with his invincible myrmidons, and the dauntless
Ajax pitched his tents on the other. After Ajax had fallen a sacrifice to
his disappointed pride, and to the ingratitude of the Greeks, his
sepulchre was erected on the ground where he had defended the navy against
the rage of Jove and of Hector; and the citizens of the rising town of Rhæteum
celebrated his memory with divine honors. Before Constantine gave a just
preference to the situation of Byzantium, he had conceived the design of
erecting the seat of empire on this celebrated spot, from whence the
Romans derived their fabulous origin. The extensive plain which lies below
ancient Troy, towards the Rhætean promontory and the tomb of Ajax,
was first chosen for his new capital; and though the undertaking was soon
relinquished the stately remains of unfinished walls and towers attracted
the notice of all who sailed through the straits of the Hellespont.
We are at present qualified to view the advantageous position of
Constantinople; which appears to have been formed by nature for the centre
and capital of a great monarchy. Situated in the forty-first degree of
latitude, the Imperial city commanded, from her seven hills, the opposite
shores of Europe and Asia; the climate was healthy and temperate, the soil
fertile, the harbor secure and capacious; and the approach on the side of
the continent was of small extent and easy defence. The Bosphorus and the
Hellespont may be considered as the two gates of Constantinople; and the
prince who possessed those important passages could always shut them
against a naval enemy, and open them to the fleets of commerce. The
preservation of the eastern provinces may, in some degree, be ascribed to
the policy of Constantine, as the barbarians of the Euxine, who in the
preceding age had poured their armaments into the heart of the
Mediterranean, soon desisted from the exercise of piracy, and despaired of
forcing this insurmountable barrier. When the gates of the Hellespont and
Bosphorus were shut, the capital still enjoyed within their spacious
enclosure every production which could supply the wants, or gratify the
luxury, of its numerous inhabitants. The sea-coasts of Thrace and
Bithynia, which languish under the weight of Turkish oppression, still
exhibit a rich prospect of vineyards, of gardens, and of plentiful
harvests; and the Propontis has ever been renowned for an inexhaustible
store of the most exquisite fish, that are taken in their stated seasons,
without skill, and almost without labor. But when the passages of the
straits were thrown open for trade, they alternately admitted the natural
and artificial riches of the north and south, of the Euxine, and of the
Mediterranean. Whatever rude commodities were collected in the forests of
Germany and Scythia, and far as the sources of the Tanais and the
Borysthenes; whatsoever was manufactured by the skill of Europe or Asia;
the corn of Egypt, and the gems and spices of the farthest India, were
brought by the varying winds into the port of Constantinople, which for
many ages attracted the commerce of the ancient world.
[See Basilica Of Constantinople]
The prospect of beauty, of safety, and of wealth, united in a single spot,
was sufficient to justify the choice of Constantine. But as some decent
mixture of prodigy and fable has, in every age, been supposed to reflect a
becoming majesty on the origin of great cities, the emperor was desirous
of ascribing his resolution, not so much to the uncertain counsels of
human policy, as to the infallible and eternal decrees of divine wisdom.
In one of his laws he has been careful to instruct posterity, that in
obedience to the commands of God, he laid the everlasting foundations of
Constantinople: and though he has not condescended to relate in what
manner the celestial inspiration was communicated to his mind, the defect
of his modest silence has been liberally supplied by the ingenuity of
succeeding writers; who describe the nocturnal vision which appeared to
the fancy of Constantine, as he slept within the walls of Byzantium. The
tutelar genius of the city, a venerable matron sinking under the weight of
years and infirmities, was suddenly transformed into a blooming maid, whom
his own hands adorned with all the symbols of Imperial greatness. The
monarch awoke, interpreted the auspicious omen, and obeyed, without
hesitation, the will of Heaven. The day which gave birth to a city or
colony was celebrated by the Romans with such ceremonies as had been
ordained by a generous superstition; and though Constantine might omit
some rites which savored too strongly of their Pagan origin, yet he was
anxious to leave a deep impression of hope and respect on the minds of the
spectators. On foot, with a lance in his hand, the emperor himself led the
solemn procession; and directed the line, which was traced as the boundary
of the destined capital: till the growing circumference was observed with
astonishment by the assistants, who, at length, ventured to observe, that
he had already exceeded the most ample measure of a great city. "I shall
still advance," replied Constantine, "till He, the invisible guide who
marches before me, thinks proper to stop." Without presuming to
investigate the nature or motives of this extraordinary conductor, we
shall content ourselves with the more humble task of describing the extent
and limits of Constantinople.
In the actual state of the city, the palace and gardens of the Seraglio
occupy the eastern promontory, the first of the seven hills, and cover
about one hundred and fifty acres of our own measure. The seat of Turkish
jealousy and despotism is erected on the foundations of a Grecian
republic; but it may be supposed that the Byzantines were tempted by the
conveniency of the harbor to extend their habitations on that side beyond
the modern limits of the Seraglio. The new walls of Constantine stretched
from the port to the Propontis across the enlarged breadth of the
triangle, at the distance of fifteen stadia from the ancient
fortification; and with the city of Byzantium they enclosed five of the
seven hills, which, to the eyes of those who approach Constantinople,
appear to rise above each other in beautiful order. About a century after
the death of the founder, the new buildings, extending on one side up the
harbor, and on the other along the Propontis, already covered the narrow
ridge of the sixth, and the broad summit of the seventh hill. The
necessity of protecting those suburbs from the incessant inroads of the
barbarians engaged the younger Theodosius to surround his capital with an
adequate and permanent enclosure of walls. From the eastern promontory to
the golden gate, the extreme length of Constantinople was about three
Roman miles; the circumference measured between ten and eleven; and the
surface might be computed as equal to about two thousand English acres. It
is impossible to justify the vain and credulous exaggerations of modern
travellers, who have sometimes stretched the limits of Constantinople over
the adjacent villages of the European, and even of the Asiatic coast. But
the suburbs of Pera and Galata, though situate beyond the harbor, may
deserve to be considered as a part of the city; and this addition may
perhaps authorize the measure of a Byzantine historian, who assigns
sixteen Greek (about fourteen Roman) miles for the circumference of his
native city. Such an extent may not seem unworthy of an Imperial
residence. Yet Constantinople must yield to Babylon and Thebes, to ancient
Rome, to London, and even to Paris.
The master of the Roman world, who aspired to erect an eternal monument of
the glories of his reign could employ in the prosecution of that great
work, the wealth, the labor, and all that yet remained of the genius of
obedient millions. Some estimate may be formed of the expense bestowed
with Imperial liberality on the foundation of Constantinople, by the
allowance of about two millions five hundred thousand pounds for the
construction of the walls, the porticos, and the aqueducts. The forests
that overshadowed the shores of the Euxine, and the celebrated quarries of
white marble in the little island of Proconnesus, supplied an
inexhaustible stock of materials, ready to be conveyed, by the convenience
of a short water carriage, to the harbor of Byzantium. A multitude of
laborers and artificers urged the conclusion of the work with incessant
toil: but the impatience of Constantine soon discovered, that, in the
decline of the arts, the skill as well as numbers of his architects bore a
very unequal proportion to the greatness of his designs. The magistrates
of the most distant provinces were therefore directed to institute
schools, to appoint professors, and by the hopes of rewards and
privileges, to engage in the study and practice of architecture a
sufficient number of ingenious youths, who had received a liberal
education. The buildings of the new city were executed by such artificers
as the reign of Constantine could afford; but they were decorated by the
hands of the most celebrated masters of the age of Pericles and Alexander.
To revive the genius of Phidias and Lysippus, surpassed indeed the power
of a Roman emperor; but the immortal productions which they had bequeathed
to posterity were exposed without defence to the rapacious vanity of a
despot. By his commands the cities of Greece and Asia were despoiled of
their most valuable ornaments. The trophies of memorable wars, the objects
of religious veneration, the most finished statues of the gods and heroes,
of the sages and poets, of ancient times, contributed to the splendid
triumph of Constantinople; and gave occasion to the remark of the
historian Cedrenus, who observes, with some enthusiasm, that nothing
seemed wanting except the souls of the illustrious men whom these
admirable monuments were intended to represent. But it is not in the city
of Constantine, nor in the declining period of an empire, when the human
mind was depressed by civil and religious slavery, that we should seek for
the souls of Homer and of Demosthenes.
During the siege of Byzantium, the conqueror had pitched his tent on the
commanding eminence of the second hill. To perpetuate the memory of his
success, he chose the same advantageous position for the principal Forum;
which appears to have been of a circular, or rather elliptical form. The
two opposite entrances formed triumphal arches; the porticos, which
enclosed it on every side, were filled with statues; and the centre of the
Forum was occupied by a lofty column, of which a mutilated fragment is now
degraded by the appellation of the burnt pillar.
This column was erected on a pedestal of white marble twenty feet high;
and was composed of ten pieces of porphyry, each of which measured about
ten feet in height, and about thirty-three in circumference. On the summit
of the pillar, above one hundred and twenty feet from the ground, stood
the colossal statue of Apollo. It was a bronze, had been transported
either from Athens or from a town of Phrygia, and was supposed to be the
work of Phidias. The artist had represented the god of day, or, as it was
afterwards interpreted, the emperor Constantine himself, with a sceptre in
his right hand, the globe of the world in his left, and a crown of rays
glittering on his head. The Circus, or Hippodrome, was a stately building
about four hundred paces in length, and one hundred in breadth. The space
between the two metoe or goals were filled with statues and obelisks; and we
may still remark a very singular fragment of antiquity; the bodies of
three serpents, twisted into one pillar of brass. Their triple heads had
once supported the golden tripod which, after the defeat of Xerxes, was
consecrated in the temple of Delphi by the victorious Greeks. The beauty
of the Hippodrome has been long since defaced by the rude hands of the
Turkish conquerors; but, under the similar appellation of Atmeidan, it
still serves as a place of exercise for their horses. From the throne,
whence the emperor viewed the Circensian games, a winding staircase
descended to the palace; a magnificent edifice, which scarcely yielded to
the residence of Rome itself, and which, together with the dependent
courts, gardens, and porticos, covered a considerable extent of ground
upon the banks of the Propontis between the Hippodrome and the church of
St. Sophia. We might likewise celebrate the baths, which still retained
the name of Zeuxippus, after they had been enriched, by the munificence of
Constantine, with lofty columns, various marbles, and above threescore
statues of bronze. But we should deviate from the design of this history,
if we attempted minutely to describe the different buildings or quarters
of the city. It may be sufficient to observe, that whatever could adorn
the dignity of a great capital, or contribute to the benefit or pleasure
of its numerous inhabitants, was contained within the walls of
Constantinople. A particular description, composed about a century after
its foundation, enumerates a capitol or school of learning, a circus, two
theatres, eight public, and one hundred and fifty-three private baths,
fifty-two porticos, five granaries, eight aqueducts or reservoirs of
water, four spacious halls for the meetings of the senate or courts of
justice, fourteen churches, fourteen palaces, and four thousand three
hundred and eighty-eight houses, which, for their size or beauty, deserved
to be distinguished from the multitude of plebeian inhabitants.
The populousness of his favored city was the next and most serious object
of the attention of its founder. In the dark ages which succeeded the
translation of the empire, the remote and the immediate consequences of
that memorable event were strangely confounded by the vanity of the Greeks
and the credulity of the Latins. It was asserted, and believed, that all
the noble families of Rome, the senate, and the equestrian order, with
their innumerable attendants, had followed their emperor to the banks of
the Propontis; that a spurious race of strangers and plebeians was left to
possess the solitude of the ancient capital; and that the lands of Italy,
long since converted into gardens, were at once deprived of cultivation
and inhabitants. In the course of this history, such exaggerations will be
reduced to their just value: yet, since the growth of Constantinople
cannot be ascribed to the general increase of mankind and of industry, it
must be admitted that this artificial colony was raised at the expense of
the ancient cities of the empire. Many opulent senators of Rome, and of
the eastern provinces, were probably invited by Constantine to adopt for
their country the fortunate spot, which he had chosen for his own
residence. The invitations of a master are scarcely to be distinguished
from commands; and the liberality of the emperor obtained a ready and
cheerful obedience. He bestowed on his favorites the palaces which he had
built in the several quarters of the city, assigned them lands and
pensions for the support of their dignity, and alienated the demesnes of
Pontus and Asia to grant hereditary estates by the easy tenure of
maintaining a house in the capital. But these encouragements and
obligations soon became superfluous, and were gradually abolished.
Wherever the seat of government is fixed, a considerable part of the
public revenue will be expended by the prince himself, by his ministers,
by the officers of justice, and by the domestics of the palace. The most
wealthy of the provincials will be attracted by the powerful motives of
interest and duty, of amusement and curiosity. A third and more numerous
class of inhabitants will insensibly be formed, of servants, of
artificers, and of merchants, who derive their subsistence from their own
labor, and from the wants or luxury of the superior ranks. In less than a
century, Constantinople disputed with Rome itself the preeminence of
riches and numbers. New piles of buildings, crowded together with too
little regard to health or convenience, scarcely allowed the intervals of
narrow streets for the perpetual throng of men, of horses, and of
carriages. The allotted space of ground was insufficient to contain the
increasing people; and the additional foundations, which, on either side,
were advanced into the sea, might alone have composed a very considerable
city.
The frequent and regular distributions of wine and oil, of corn or bread,
of money or provisions, had almost exempted the poorest citizens of Rome
from the necessity of labor. The magnificence of the first Cæsars
was in some measure imitated by the founder of Constantinople: but his
liberality, however it might excite the applause of the people, has in
curred the censure of posterity. A nation of legislators and conquerors
might assert their claim to the harvests of Africa, which had been
purchased with their blood; and it was artfully contrived by Augustus,
that, in the enjoyment of plenty, the Romans should lose the memory of
freedom. But the prodigality of Constantine could not be excused by any
consideration either of public or private interest; and the annual tribute
of corn imposed upon Egypt for the benefit of his new capital, was applied
to feed a lazy and insolent populace, at the expense of the husbandmen of
an industrious province. * Some other regulations of this emperor are less
liable to blame, but they are less deserving of notice. He divided
Constantinople into fourteen regions or quarters, dignified the public
council with the appellation of senate, communicated to the citizens the
privileges of Italy, and bestowed on the rising city the title of Colony,
the first and most favored daughter of ancient Rome. The venerable parent
still maintained the legal and acknowledged supremacy, which was due to
her age, her dignity, and to the remembrance of her former greatness.
As Constantine urged the progress of the work with the impatience of a
lover, the walls, the porticos, and the principal edifices were completed
in a few years, or, according to another account, in a few months; but
this extraordinary diligence should excite the less admiration, since many
of the buildings were finished in so hasty and imperfect a manner, that
under the succeeding reign, they were preserved with difficulty from
impending ruin. But while they displayed the vigor and freshness of youth,
the founder prepared to celebrate the dedication of his city. The games
and largesses which crowned the pomp of this memorable festival may easily
be supposed; but there is one circumstance of a more singular and
permanent nature, which ought not entirely to be overlooked. As often as
the birthday of the city returned, the statue of Constantine, framed by
his order, of gilt wood, and bearing in his right hand a small image of
the genius of the place, was erected on a triumphal car. The guards,
carrying white tapers, and clothed in their richest apparel, accompanied
the solemn procession as it moved through the Hippodrome. When it was
opposite to the throne of the reigning emperor, he rose from his seat, and
with grateful reverence adored the memory of his predecessor. At the
festival of the dedication, an edict, engraved on a column of marble,
bestowed the title of Second or New Rome on the city of Constantine. But
the name of Constantinople has prevailed over that honorable epithet; and
after the revolution of fourteen centuries, still perpetuates the fame of
its author.
The foundation of a new capital is naturally connected with the
establishment of a new form of civil and military administration. The
distinct view of the complicated system of policy, introduced by
Diocletian, improved by Constantine, and completed by his immediate
successors, may not only amuse the fancy by the singular picture of a
great empire, but will tend to illustrate the secret and internal causes
of its rapid decay. In the pursuit of any remarkable institution, we may
be frequently led into the more early or the more recent times of the
Roman history; but the proper limits of this inquiry will be included
within a period of about one hundred and thirty years, from the accession
of Constantine to the publication of the Theodosian code; from which, as
well as from the Notitia * of the East and West,
we derive the most copious and authentic information of the state of the
empire. This variety of objects will suspend, for some time, the course of
the narrative; but the interruption will be censured only by those readers
who are insensible to the importance of laws and manners, while they
peruse, with eager curiosity, the transient intrigues of a court, or the
accidental event of a battle.
The manly pride of the Romans, content with substantial power, had left to
the vanity of the East the forms and ceremonies of ostentatious greatness.
But when they lost even the semblance of those virtues which were derived
from their ancient freedom, the simplicity of Roman manners was insensibly
corrupted by the stately affectation of the courts of Asia. The
distinctions of personal merit and influence, so conspicuous in a
republic, so feeble and obscure under a monarchy, were abolished by the
despotism of the emperors; who substituted in their room a severe
subordination of rank and office from the titled slaves who were seated on
the steps of the throne, to the meanest instruments of arbitrary power.
This multitude of abject dependants was interested in the support of the
actual government from the dread of a revolution, which might at once
confound their hopes and intercept the reward of their services. In this
divine hierarchy (for such it is frequently styled) every rank was marked
with the most scrupulous exactness, and its dignity was displayed in a
variety of trifling and solemn ceremonies, which it was a study to learn,
and a sacrilege to neglect. The purity of the Latin language was debased,
by adopting, in the intercourse of pride and flattery, a profusion of
epithets, which Tully would scarcely have understood, and which Augustus
would have rejected with indignation. The principal officers of the empire
were saluted, even by the sovereign himself, with the deceitful titles of
your Sincerity, your Gravity,
your Excellency, your Eminence,
your sublime and wonderful Magnitude, your
illustrious and magnificent Highness. The
codicils or patents of their office were curiously emblazoned with such
emblems as were best adapted to explain its nature and high dignity; the
image or portrait of the reigning emperors; a triumphal car; the book of
mandates placed on a table, covered with a rich carpet, and illuminated by
four tapers; the allegorical figures of the provinces which they governed;
or the appellations and standards of the troops whom they commanded. Some
of these official ensigns were really exhibited in their hall of audience;
others preceded their pompous march whenever they appeared in public; and
every circumstance of their demeanor, their dress, their ornaments, and
their train, was calculated to inspire a deep reverence for the
representatives of supreme majesty. By a philosophic observer, the system
of the Roman government might have been mistaken for a splendid theatre,
filled with players of every character and degree, who repeated the
language, and imitated the passions, of their original model.
All the magistrates of sufficient importance to find a place in the
general state of the empire, were accurately divided into three classes.
1. The Illustrious. 2. The Spectabiles,
or Respectable. And, 3. the Clarissimi;
whom we may translate by the word Honorable. In
the times of Roman simplicity, the last-mentioned epithet was used only as
a vague expression of deference, till it became at length the peculiar and
appropriated title of all who were members of the senate, and consequently
of all who, from that venerable body, were selected to govern the
provinces. The vanity of those who, from their rank and office, might
claim a superior distinction above the rest of the senatorial order, was
long afterwards indulged with the new appellation of Respectable;
but the title of Illustrious was always reserved
to some eminent personages who were obeyed or reverenced by the two
subordinate classes. It was communicated only, I. To the consuls and
patricians; II. To the Prætorian præfects, with the præfects
of Rome and Constantinople; III. To the masters-general of the cavalry and
the infantry; and IV. To the seven ministers of the palace, who exercised
their sacred functions about the person of the
emperor. Among those illustrious magistrates who were esteemed coordinate
with each other, the seniority of appointment gave place to the union of
dignities. By the expedient of honorary codicils, the emperors, who were
fond of multiplying their favors, might sometimes gratify the vanity,
though not the ambition, of impatient courtiers.
I. As long as the Roman consuls were the first magistrates of a free
state, they derived their right to power from the choice of the people. As
long as the emperors condescended to disguise the servitude which they
imposed, the consuls were still elected by the real or apparent suffrage
of the senate. From the reign of Diocletian, even these vestiges of
liberty were abolished, and the successful candidates who were invested
with the annual honors of the consulship, affected to deplore the
humiliating condition of their predecessors. The Scipios and the Catos had
been reduced to solicit the votes of plebeians, to pass through the
tedious and expensive forms of a popular election, and to expose their
dignity to the shame of a public refusal; while their own happier fate had
reserved them for an age and government in which the rewards of virtue
were assigned by the unerring wisdom of a gracious sovereign. In the
epistles which the emperor addressed to the two consuls elect, it was
declared, that they were created by his sole authority. Their names and
portraits, engraved on gilt tables of ivory, were dispersed over the
empire as presents to the provinces, the cities, the magistrates, the
senate, and the people. Their solemn inauguration was performed at the
place of the Imperial residence; and during a period of one hundred and
twenty years, Rome was constantly deprived of the presence of her ancient
magistrates. On the morning of the first of January, the consuls assumed
the ensigns of their dignity. Their dress was a robe of purple,
embroidered in silk and gold, and sometimes ornamented with costly gems.
On this solemn occasion they were attended by the most eminent officers of
the state and army, in the habit of senators; and the useless fasces,
armed with the once formidable axes, were borne before them by the
lictors. The procession moved from the palace to the Forum or principal
square of the city; where the consuls ascended their tribunal, and seated
themselves in the curule chairs, which were framed after the fashion of
ancient times. They immediately exercised an act of jurisdiction, by the
manumission of a slave, who was brought before them for that purpose; and
the ceremony was intended to represent the celebrated action of the elder
Brutus, the author of liberty and of the consulship, when he admitted
among his fellow-citizens the faithful Vindex, who had revealed the
conspiracy of the Tarquins. The public festival was continued during
several days in all the principal cities in Rome, from custom; in
Constantinople, from imitation in Carthage, Antioch, and Alexandria, from
the love of pleasure, and the superfluity of wealth. In the two capitals
of the empire the annual games of the theatre, the circus, and the
amphitheatre, cost four thousand pounds of gold, (about) one hundred and
sixty thousand pounds sterling: and if so heavy an expense surpassed the
faculties or the inclinations of the magistrates themselves, the sum was
supplied from the Imperial treasury. As soon as the consuls had discharged
these customary duties, they were at liberty to retire into the shade of
private life, and to enjoy, during the remainder of the year, the
undisturbed contemplation of their own greatness. They no longer presided
in the national councils; they no longer executed the resolutions of peace
or war. Their abilities (unless they were employed in more effective
offices) were of little moment; and their names served only as the legal
date of the year in which they had filled the chair of Marius and of
Cicero. Yet it was still felt and acknowledged, in the last period of
Roman servitude, that this empty name might be compared, and even
preferred, to the possession of substantial power. The title of consul was
still the most splendid object of ambition, the noblest reward of virtue
and loyalty. The emperors themselves, who disdained the faint shadow of
the republic, were conscious that they acquired an additional splendor and
majesty as often as they assumed the annual honors of the consular
dignity.
The proudest and most perfect separation which can be found in any age or
country, between the nobles and the people, is perhaps that of the
Patricians and the Plebeians, as it was established in the first age of
the Roman republic. Wealth and honors, the offices of the state, and the
ceremonies of religion, were almost exclusively possessed by the former
who, preserving the purity of their blood with the most insulting
jealousy, held their clients in a condition of specious vassalage. But
these distinctions, so incompatible with the spirit of a free people, were
removed, after a long struggle, by the persevering efforts of the
Tribunes. The most active and successful of the Plebeians accumulated
wealth, aspired to honors, deserved triumphs, contracted alliances, and,
after some generations, assumed the pride of ancient nobility. The
Patrician families, on the other hand, whose original number was never
recruited till the end of the commonwealth, either failed in the ordinary
course of nature, or were extinguished in so many foreign and domestic
wars, or, through a want of merit or fortune, insensibly mingled with the
mass of the people. Very few remained who could derive their pure and
genuine origin from the infancy of the city, or even from that of the
republic, when Cæsar and Augustus, Claudius and Vespasian, created
from the body of the senate a competent number of new Patrician families,
in the hope of perpetuating an order, which was still considered as
honorable and sacred. But these artificial supplies (in which the reigning
house was always included) were rapidly swept away by the rage of tyrants,
by frequent revolutions, by the change of manners, and by the intermixture
of nations. Little more was left when Constantine ascended the throne,
than a vague and imperfect tradition, that the Patricians had once been
the first of the Romans. To form a body of nobles, whose influence may
restrain, while it secures the authority of the monarch, would have been
very inconsistent with the character and policy of Constantine; but had he
seriously entertained such a design, it might have exceeded the measure of
his power to ratify, by an arbitrary edict, an institution which must
expect the sanction of time and of opinion. He revived, indeed, the title
of Patricians, but he revived it as a personal, not as an hereditary
distinction. They yielded only to the transient superiority of the annual
consuls; but they enjoyed the pre-eminence over all the great officers of
state, with the most familiar access to the person of the prince. This
honorable rank was bestowed on them for life; and as they were usually
favorites, and ministers who had grown old in the Imperial court, the true
etymology of the word was perverted by ignorance and flattery; and the
Patricians of Constantine were reverenced as the adopted Fathers
of the emperor and the republic.
II. The fortunes of the Prætorian præfects were essentially
different from those of the consuls and Patricians. The latter saw their
ancient greatness evaporate in a vain title. The former, rising by degrees
from the most humble condition, were invested with the civil and military
administration of the Roman world. From the reign of Severus to that of
Diocletian, the guards and the palace, the laws and the finances, the
armies and the provinces, were intrusted to their superintending care;
and, like the Viziers of the East, they held with one hand the seal, and
with the other the standard, of the empire. The ambition of the præfects,
always formidable, and sometimes fatal to the masters whom they served,
was supported by the strength of the Prætorian bands; but after
those haughty troops had been weakened by Diocletian, and finally
suppressed by Constantine, the præfects, who survived their fall,
were reduced without difficulty to the station of useful and obedient
ministers. When they were no longer responsible for the safety of the
emperor's person, they resigned the jurisdiction which they had hitherto
claimed and exercised over all the departments of the palace. They were
deprived by Constantine of all military command, as soon as they had
ceased to lead into the field, under their immediate orders, the flower of
the Roman troops; and at length, by a singular revolution, the captains of
the guards were transformed into the civil magistrates of the provinces.
According to the plan of government instituted by Diocletian, the four
princes had each their Prætorian præfect; and after the
monarchy was once more united in the person of Constantine, he still
continued to create the same number of Four Præfects, and intrusted
to their care the same provinces which they already administered. 1. The
præfect of the East stretched his ample jurisdiction into the three
parts of the globe which were subject to the Romans, from the cataracts of
the Nile to the banks of the Phasis, and from the mountains of Thrace to
the frontiers of Persia. 2. The important provinces of Pannonia, Dacia,
Macedonia, and Greece, once acknowledged the authority of the præfect
of Illyricum. 3. The power of the præfect of Italy was not confined
to the country from whence he derived his title; it extended over the
additional territory of Rhætia as far as the banks of the Danube,
over the dependent islands of the Mediterranean, and over that part of the
continent of Africa which lies between the confines of Cyrene and those of
Tingitania. 4. The præfect of the Gauls comprehended under that
plural denomination the kindred provinces of Britain and Spain, and his
authority was obeyed from the wall of Antoninus to the foot of Mount
Atlas.
After the Prætorian præfects had been dismissed from all
military command, the civil functions which they were ordained to exercise
over so many subject nations, were adequate to the ambition and abilities
of the most consummate ministers. To their wisdom was committed the
supreme administration of justice and of the finances, the two objects
which, in a state of peace, comprehend almost all the respective duties of
the sovereign and of the people; of the former, to protect the citizens
who are obedient to the laws; of the latter, to contribute the share of
their property which is required for the expenses of the state. The coin,
the highways, the posts, the granaries, the manufactures, whatever could
interest the public prosperity, was moderated by the authority of the Prætorian
præfects. As the immediate representatives of the Imperial majesty,
they were empowered to explain, to enforce, and on some occasions to
modify, the general edicts by their discretionary proclamations. They
watched over the conduct of the provincial governors, removed the
negligent, and inflicted punishments on the guilty. From all the inferior
jurisdictions, an appeal in every matter of importance, either civil or
criminal, might be brought before the tribunal of the præfect; but
his sentence was final and absolute; and the
emperors themselves refused to admit any complaints against the judgment
or the integrity of a magistrate whom they honored with such unbounded
confidence. His appointments were suitable to his dignity; and if avarice
was his ruling passion, he enjoyed frequent opportunities of collecting a
rich harvest of fees, of presents, and of perquisites. Though the emperors
no longer dreaded the ambition of their præfects, they were
attentive to counterbalance the power of this great office by the
uncertainty and shortness of its duration.
From their superior importance and dignity, Rome and Constantinople were
alone excepted from the jurisdiction of the Prætorian præfects.
The immense size of the city, and the experience of the tardy, ineffectual
operation of the laws, had furnished the policy of Augustus with a
specious pretence for introducing a new magistrate, who alone could
restrain a servile and turbulent populace by the strong arm of arbitrary
power. Valerius Messalla was appointed the first præfect of Rome,
that his reputation might countenance so invidious a measure; but, at the
end of a few days, that accomplished citizen resigned his office,
declaring, with a spirit worthy of the friend of Brutus, that he found
himself incapable of exercising a power incompatible with public freedom.
As the sense of liberty became less exquisite, the advantages of order
were more clearly understood; and the præfect, who seemed to have
been designed as a terror only to slaves and vagrants, was permitted to
extend his civil and criminal jurisdiction over the equestrian and noble
families of Rome. The prætors, annually created as the judges of law
and equity, could not long dispute the possession of the Forum with a
vigorous and permanent magistrate, who was usually admitted into the
confidence of the prince. Their courts were deserted, their number, which
had once fluctuated between twelve and eighteen, was gradually reduced to
two or three, and their important functions were confined to the expensive
obligation of exhibiting games for the amusement of the people. After the
office of the Roman consuls had been changed into a vain pageant, which
was rarely displayed in the capital, the præfects assumed their
vacant place in the senate, and were soon acknowledged as the ordinary
presidents of that venerable assembly. They received appeals from the
distance of one hundred miles; and it was allowed as a principle of
jurisprudence, that all municipal authority was derived from them alone.
In the discharge of his laborious employment, the governor of Rome was
assisted by fifteen officers, some of whom had been originally his equals,
or even his superiors. The principal departments were relative to the
command of a numerous watch, established as a safeguard against fires,
robberies, and nocturnal disorders; the custody and distribution of the
public allowance of corn and provisions; the care of the port, of the
aqueducts, of the common sewers, and of the navigation and bed of the
Tyber; the inspection of the markets, the theatres, and of the private as
well as the public works. Their vigilance insured the three principal
objects of a regular police, safety, plenty, and cleanliness; and as a
proof of the attention of government to preserve the splendor and
ornaments of the capital, a particular inspector was appointed for the
statues; the guardian, as it were, of that inanimate people, which,
according to the extravagant computation of an old writer, was scarcely
inferior in number to the living inhabitants of Rome. About thirty years
after the foundation of Constantinople, a similar magistrate was created
in that rising metropolis, for the same uses and with the same powers. A
perfect equality was established between the dignity of the two municipal,
and that of the four Prætorian præfects.
Those who, in the imperial hierarchy, were distinguished by the title of
Respectable, formed an intermediate class
between the illustrious præfects, and the
honorable magistrates of the provinces. In this
class the proconsuls of Asia, Achaia, and Africa, claimed a preëminence,
which was yielded to the remembrance of their ancient dignity; and the
appeal from their tribunal to that of the præfects was almost the
only mark of their dependence. But the civil government of the empire was
distributed into thirteen great Dioceses, each of which equalled the just
measure of a powerful kingdom. The first of these dioceses was subject to
the jurisdiction of the count of the east; and
we may convey some idea of the importance and variety of his functions, by
observing, that six hundred apparitors, who would be styled at present
either secretaries, or clerks, or ushers, or messengers, were employed in
his immediate office. 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 eleven remaining dioceses, of Asiana,
Pontica, and Thrace; of Macedonia, Dacia, and Pannonia, or Western
Illyricum; of Italy and Africa; of Gaul, Spain, and Britain; were governed
by twelve vicars or vice-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 one hundred and sixteen provinces, each of
which supported an expensive and splendid establishment. Of these, three
were governed by proconsuls, thirty-seven by
consulars, five by correctors,
and seventy-one by presidents. The appellations
of these magistrates were different; they ranked in successive order, and the
ensigns of and their situation, from accidental circumstances, might be
more or less agreeable or advantageous. But they were all (excepting only
the pro-consuls) alike included in the class of honorable
persons; and they were alike intrusted, during the pleasure of the prince,
and under the authority of the præfects or their deputies, with the
administration of justice and the finances in their respective districts.
The ponderous volumes of the Codes and Pandects would furnish ample
materials for a minute inquiry into the system of provincial government,
as in the space of six centuries it was approved by the wisdom of the
Roman statesmen and lawyers. It may be sufficient for the historian to
select two singular and salutary provisions, intended to restrain the
abuse of authority. 1. For the preservation of peace and order, the
governors of the provinces were armed with the sword of justice. They
inflicted corporal punishments, and they exercised, in capital offences,
the power of life and death. But they were not authorized to indulge the
condemned criminal with the choice of his own execution, or to pronounce a
sentence of the mildest and most honorable kind of exile. These
prerogatives were reserved to the præfects, who alone could impose
the heavy fine of fifty pounds of gold: their vicegerents 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 Prætorian præfect.
2. As it was reasonably apprehended that the integrity of the judge might
be biased, if his interest was concerned, or his affections were engaged,
the strictest regulations were established, to exclude any person, without
the special dispensation of the emperor, from the government of the
province where he was born; 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 twenty-five years, still deplores the venal and oppressive
administration of justice, and expresses the warmest indignation that the
audience of the judge, his despatch of business, his seasonable delays,
and his final sentence, were publicly sold, either by himself or by the
officers of his court. The continuance, and perhaps the impunity, of these
crimes, is attested by the repetition of impotent laws and ineffectual
menaces.
All the civil magistrates were drawn from the profession of the law. The
celebrated Institutes of Justinian are addressed to the youth of his
dominions, who had devoted themselves to the study of Roman jurisprudence;
and the sovereign condescends to animate their diligence, by the assurance
that their skill and ability would in time be rewarded by an adequate
share in the government of the republic. The rudiments of this lucrative
science were taught in all the considerable cities of the east and west;
but the most famous school was that of Berytus, 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 Prætorian præfect of the east could
alone furnish employment for one hundred and fifty advocates, sixty-four
of whom were distinguished by peculiar privileges, and two were annually
chosen, with a salary of sixty pounds of gold, to defend the causes of the
treasury. The first experiment was made of their judicial talents, by
appointing them to act occasionally as assessors to the magistrates; from
thence they were often raised to preside in the tribunals before which
they had pleaded. They obtained the government of a province; and, by the
aid of merit, of reputation, or of favor, they ascended, by successive
steps, to the illustrious dignities of the
state. In the practice of the bar, these men had considered reason as the
instrument of dispute; they interpreted the laws according to the dictates
of private interest and the same pernicious habits might still adhere to
their characters in the public administration of the state. The honor of a
liberal profession has indeed been vindicated by ancient and modern
advocates, who have filled the most important stations, with pure
integrity and consummate wisdom: but in the decline of Roman
jurisprudence, the ordinary promotion of lawyers was pregnant with
mischief and disgrace. The noble art, which had once been preserved as the
sacred inheritance of the patricians, was fallen into the hands of
freedmen and plebeians, who, with cunning rather than with skill,
exercised a sordid and pernicious trade. Some of them procured admittance
into families for the purpose of fomenting differences, of encouraging
suits, and of preparing a harvest of gain for themselves or their
brethren. Others, recluse in their chambers, maintained the dignity of
legal professors, by furnishing a rich client with subtleties to confound
the plainest truths, and with arguments to color the most unjustifiable
pretensions. The splendid and popular class was composed of the advocates,
who filled the Forum with the sound of their turgid and loquacious
rhetoric. Careless of fame and of justice, they are described, for the
most part, as ignorant and rapacious guides, who conducted their clients
through a maze of expense, of delay, and of disappointment; from whence,
after a tedious series of years, they were at length dismissed, when their
patience and fortune were almost exhausted.
III. In the system of policy introduced by Augustus, the governors, those
at least of the Imperial provinces, were invested with the full powers of
the sovereign himself. Ministers of peace and war, the distribution of
rewards and punishments depended on them alone, and they successively
appeared on their tribunal in the robes of civil magistracy, and in
complete armor at the head of the Roman legions. The influence of the
revenue, the authority of law, and the command of a military force,
concurred to render their power supreme and absolute; and whenever they
were tempted to violate their allegiance, the loyal province which they
involved in their rebellion was scarcely sensible of any change in its
political state. From the time of Commodus to the reign of Constantine,
near one hundred governors might be enumerated, who, with various success,
erected the standard of revolt; and though the innocent were too often
sacrificed, the guilty might be sometimes prevented, by the suspicious
cruelty of their master. To secure his throne and the public tranquillity
from these formidable servants, Constantine resolved to divide the
military from the civil administration, and to establish, as a permanent
and professional distinction, a practice which had been adopted only as an
occasional expedient. The supreme jurisdiction exercised by the Prætorian
præfects 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, thirty-five military commanders were
stationed in the provinces: three in Britain, six in Gaul, one in Spain,
one in Italy, five on the Upper, and four on the Lower Danube; in Asia,
eight, three in Egypt, and four in Africa. The titles of counts,
and dukes, by which they were properly
distinguished, have obtained in modern languages so very different a
sense, that the use of them may occasion some surprise. But it should be
recollected, that the second of those appellations is only a corruption of
the Latin word, which was indiscriminately applied to any military chief.
All these provincial generals were therefore dukes;
but no more than ten among them were dignified with the rank of counts
or companions, a title of honor, or rather of favor, which had been
recently invented in the court of Constantine. A gold belt was the ensign
which distinguished the office of the counts and dukes; and besides their
pay, they received a liberal allowance sufficient to maintain one hundred
and ninety servants, and one hundred and fifty-eight horses. They were
strictly prohibited from interfering in any matter which related to the
administration of justice or the revenue; but the command which they
exercised over the troops of their department, was independent of the
authority of the magistrates. About the same time that Constantine gave a
legal sanction to the ecclesiastical order, he instituted in the Roman
empire the nice balance of the civil and the military powers. The
emulation, and sometimes the discord, which reigned between two
professions of opposite interests and incompatible manners, was productive
of beneficial and of pernicious consequences. It was seldom to be expected
that the general and the civil governor of a province should either
conspire for the disturbance, or should unite for the service, of their
country. While the one delayed to offer the assistance which the other
disdained to solicit, the troops very frequently remained without orders
or without supplies; the public safety was betrayed, and the defenceless
subjects were left exposed to the fury of the Barbarians. The divided
administration which had been formed by Constantine, relaxed the vigor of
the state, while it secured the tranquillity of the monarch.
The memory of Constantine has been deservedly censured for another
innovation, which corrupted military discipline and prepared the ruin of
the empire. The nineteen years which preceded his final victory over
Licinius, had been a period of license and intestine war. The rivals who
contended for the possession of the Roman world, had withdrawn the
greatest part of their forces from the guard of the general frontier; and
the principal cities which formed the boundary of their respective
dominions were filled with soldiers, who considered their countrymen as
their most implacable enemies. After the use of these internal garrisons
had ceased with the civil war, the conqueror wanted either wisdom or
firmness to revive the severe discipline of Diocletian, and to suppress a
fatal indulgence, which habit had endeared and almost confirmed to the
military order. From the reign of Constantine, a popular and even legal
distinction was admitted between the Palatines
and the Borderers; the troops of the court, as
they were improperly styled, and the troops of the frontier. The former,
elevated by the superiority of their pay and privileges, were permitted,
except in the extraordinary emergencies of war, to occupy their tranquil
stations in the heart of the provinces. The most flourishing cities were
oppressed by the intolerable weight of quarters. The soldiers insensibly
forgot the virtues of their profession, and contracted only the vices of
civil life. They were either degraded by the industry of mechanic trades,
or enervated by the luxury of baths and theatres. They soon became
careless of their martial exercises, curious in their diet and apparel;
and while they inspired terror to the subjects of the empire, they
trembled at the hostile approach of the Barbarians. The chain of
fortifications which Diocletian and his colleagues had extended along the
banks of the great rivers, was no longer maintained with the same care, or
defended with the same vigilance. The numbers which still remained under
the name of the troops of the frontier, might be sufficient for the
ordinary defence; but their spirit was degraded by the humiliating
reflection, that they who were exposed to the
hardships and dangers of a perpetual warfare, were rewarded only with
about two thirds of the pay and emoluments which were lavished on the
troops of the court. Even the bands or legions that were raised the
nearest to the level of those unworthy favorites, were in some measure
disgraced by the title of honor which they were allowed to assume. It was
in vain that Constantine repeated the most dreadful menaces of fire and
sword against the Borderers who should dare desert their colors, to
connive at the inroads of the Barbarians, or to participate in the spoil.
The mischiefs which flow from injudicious counsels are seldom removed by
the application of partial severities; and though succeeding princes
labored to restore the strength and numbers of the frontier garrisons, the
empire, till the last moment of its dissolution, continued to languish
under the mortal wound which had been so rashly or so weakly inflicted by
the hand of Constantine.
The same timid policy, of dividing whatever is united, of reducing
whatever is eminent, of dreading every active power, and of expecting that
the most feeble will prove the most obedient, seems to pervade the
institutions of several princes, and particularly those of Constantine.
The martial pride of the legions, whose victorious camps had so often been
the scene of rebellion, was nourished by the memory of their past
exploits, and the consciousness of their actual strength. As long as they
maintained their ancient establishment of six thousand men, they
subsisted, under the reign of Diocletian, each of them singly, a visible
and important object in the military history of the Roman empire. A few
years afterwards, these gigantic bodies were shrunk to a very diminutive
size; and when seven legions, with some auxiliaries, defended the city of
Amida against the Persians, the total garrison, with the inhabitants of
both sexes, and the peasants of the deserted country, did not exceed the
number of twenty thousand persons. From this fact, and from similar
examples, there is reason to believe, that the constitution of the
legionary troops, to which they partly owed their valor and discipline,
was dissolved by Constantine; and that the bands of Roman infantry, which
still assumed the same names and the same honors, consisted only of one
thousand or fifteen hundred men. The conspiracy of so many separate
detachments, each of which was awed by the sense of its own weakness,
could easily be checked; and the successors of Constantine might indulge
their love of ostentation, by issuing their orders to one hundred and
thirty-two legions, inscribed on the muster-roll of their numerous armies.
The remainder of their troops was distributed into several hundred cohorts
of infantry, and squadrons of cavalry. Their arms, and titles, and
ensigns, were calculated to inspire terror, and to display the variety of
nations who marched under the Imperial standard. And not a vestige was
left of that severe simplicity, which, in the ages of freedom and victory,
had distinguished the line of battle of a Roman army from the confused
host of an Asiatic monarch. A more particular enumeration, drawn from the
Notitia, might exercise the diligence of an
antiquary; but the historian will content himself with observing, that the
number of permanent stations or garrisons established on the frontiers of
the empire, amounted to five hundred and eighty-three; and that, under the
successors of Constantine, the complete force of the military
establishment was computed at six hundred and forty-five thousand
soldiers. 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 honor; but the
timid and luxurious inhabitants of a declining empire must be allured into
the service by the hopes of profit, or compelled by the dread of
punishment. The resources of the Roman treasury were exhausted by the
increase of pay, by the repetition of donatives, and by the invention of
new emolument and indulgences, which, in the opinion of the provincial
youth might compensate the hardships and dangers of a military life. Yet,
although the stature was lowered, although slaves, least by a tacit
connivance, were indiscriminately received into the ranks, the
insurmountable difficulty of procuring a regular and adequate supply of
volunteers, obliged the emperors to adopt more effectual and coercive
methods. The lands bestowed on the veterans, as the free reward of their
valor were henceforward granted under a condition which contain the first
rudiments of the feudal tenures; that their sons, who succeeded to the
inheritance, should devote themselves to the profession of arms, as soon
as they attained the age of manhood; and their cowardly refusal was
punished by the lose of honor, of fortune, or even of life. But as the
annual growth of the sons of the veterans bore a very small proportion to
the demands of the service, levies of men were frequently required from
the provinces, and every proprietor was obliged either to take up arms, or
to procure a substitute, or to purchase his exemption by the payment of a
heavy fine. The sum of forty-two pieces of gold, to which it was reduced,
ascertains the exorbitant price of volunteers, and the reluctance with
which the government admitted of this 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.
The introduction of Barbarians into the Roman armies became every day more
universal, more necessary, and more fatal. The most daring of the
Scythians, of the Goths, and of the Germans, who delighted in war, and who
found it more profitable to defend than to ravage the provinces, were
enrolled, not only in the auxiliaries of their respective nations, but in
the legions themselves, and among the most distinguished of the Palatine
troops. As they freely mingled with the subjects of the empire, they
gradually learned to despise their manners, and to imitate their arts.
They abjured the implicit reverence which the pride of Rome had exacted
from their ignorance, while they acquired the knowledge and possession of
those advantages by which alone she supported her declining greatness. The
Barbarian soldiers, who displayed any military talents, were advanced,
without exception, to the most important commands; and the names of the
tribunes, of the counts and dukes, and of the generals themselves, betray
a foreign origin, which they no longer condescended to disguise. They were
often intrusted with the conduct of a war against their countrymen; and
though most of them preferred the ties of allegiance to those of blood,
they did not always avoid the guilt, or at least the suspicion, of holding
a treasonable correspondence with the enemy, of inviting his invasion, or
of sparing his retreat. The camps and the palace of the son of Constantine
were governed by the powerful faction of the Franks, who preserved the
strictest connection with each other, and with their country, and who
resented every personal affront as a national indignity. 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 learned to write, to speak, and to act with
the same spirit, and with equal abilities.
IV. Besides the magistrates and generals, who at a distance from the court
diffused their delegated authority over the provinces and armies, the
emperor conferred the rank of Illustrious on
seven of his more immediate servants, to whose fidelity he intrusted his
safety, or his counsels, or his treasures. 1. The private
apartments of the palace were governed by a favorite eunuch, who, in the
language of that age, was styled the propositus,
or præfect of the sacred bed-chamber. His duty was to attend the
emperor in his hours of state, or in those of amusement, and to perform
about his person all those menial services, which can only derive their
splendor from the influence of royalty. Under a prince who deserved to
reign, the great chamberlain (for such we may call him) was a useful and
humble domestic; but an artful domestic, who improves every occasion of
unguarded confidence, will insensibly acquire over a feeble mind that
ascendant which harsh wisdom and uncomplying virtue can seldom obtain. The
degenerate grandsons of Theodosius, who were invisible to their subjects,
and contemptible to their enemies, exalted the præfects 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 who waited in the
presence, was thought worthy to rank before the respectable
proconsuls of Greece or Asia. The jurisdiction of the chamberlain was
acknowledged by the counts, or superintendents,
who regulated the two important provinces of the magnificence of the
wardrobe, and of the luxury of the Imperial table. 2. The
principal administration of public affairs was committed to the diligence
and abilities of the master of the offices. He
was the supreme magistrate of the palace, inspected the discipline of the
civil and military schools, and received appeals
from all parts of the empire, in the causes which related to that numerous
army of privileged persons, who, as the servants of the court, had
obtained for themselves and families a right to decline the authority of
the ordinary judges. The correspondence between the prince and his
subjects was managed by the four scrinia, or
offices of this minister of state. The first was appropriated to
memorials, the second to epistles, the third to petitions, and the fourth
to papers and orders of a miscellaneous kind. Each of these was directed
by an inferior master of respectable dignity,
and the whole business was despatched by a hundred and forty-eight
secretaries, chosen for the most part from the profession of the law, on
account of the variety of abstracts of reports and references which
frequently occurred in the exercise of their several functions. From a
condescension, which in former ages would have been esteemed unworthy the
Roman majesty, a particular secretary was allowed for the Greek language;
and interpreters were appointed to receive the ambassadors of the
Barbarians; but the department of foreign affairs, which constitutes so
essential a part of modern policy, seldom diverted the attention of the
master of the offices. His mind was more seriously engaged by the general
direction of the posts and arsenals of the empire. There were thirty-four
cities, fifteen in the East, and nineteen in the West, in which regular
companies of workmen were perpetually employed in fabricating defensive
armor, offensive weapons of all sorts, and military engines, which were
deposited in the arsenals, and occasionally delivered for the service of
the troops. 3. In the course of nine centuries, the
office of quæstor 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 proconsul, and to every prætor, who exercised a military or
provincial command; with the extent of conquest, the two quæstors
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 honors of the republic. Whilst Augustus affected to
maintain the freedom of election, he consented to accept the annual
privilege of recommending, or rather indeed of nominating, a certain
proportion of candidates; and it was his custom to select one of these
distinguished youths, to read his orations or epistles in the assemblies
of the senate. The practice of Augustus was imitated by succeeding
princes; the occasional commission was established as a permanent office;
and the favored quæstor, 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 Prætorian præfects, and the
master of the offices; and he was frequently requested to resolve the
doubts of inferior judges: but as he was not oppressed with a variety of
subordinate business, his leisure and talents were employed to cultivate
that dignified style of eloquence, which, in the corruption of taste and
language, still preserves the majesty of the Roman laws. In some respects,
the office of the Imperial quæstor may be compared with that of a
modern chancellor; but the use of a great seal, which seems to have been
adopted by the illiterate barbarians, was never introduced to attest the
public acts of the emperors. 4. The extraordinary title
of count of the sacred largesses was bestowed on
the treasurer-general of the revenue, with the intention perhaps of
inculcating, that every payment flowed from the voluntary bounty of the
monarch. To conceive the almost infinite detail of the annual and daily
expense of the civil and military administration in every part of a great
empire, would exceed the powers of the most vigorous imagination. The
actual account employed several hundred persons, distributed into eleven
different offices, which were artfully contrived to examine and control
their respective operations. The multitude of these agents had a natural
tendency to increase; and it was more than once thought expedient to
dismiss to their native homes the useless supernumeraries, who, deserting
their honest labors, had pressed with too much eagerness into the
lucrative profession of the finances. Twenty-nine provincial receivers, of
whom eighteen were honored with the title of count, corresponded with the
treasurer; and he extended his jurisdiction over the mines from whence the
precious metals were extracted, over the mints, in which they were
converted into the current coin, and over the public treasuries of the
most important cities, where they were deposited for the service of the
state. The foreign trade of the empire was regulated by this minister, who
directed likewise all the linen and woollen manufactures, in which the
successive operations of spinning, weaving, and dyeing were executed,
chiefly by women of a servile condition, for the use of the palace and
army. Twenty-six of these institutions are enumerated in the West, where
the arts had been more recently introduced, and a still larger proportion
may be allowed for the industrious provinces of the East. 5.
Besides the public revenue, which an absolute monarch might levy and
expend according to his pleasure, the emperors, in the capacity of opulent
citizens, possessed a very extensive property, which was administered by
the count or treasurer of the
private estate. Some part had perhaps been the ancient
demesnes of kings and republics; some accessions might be derived from the
families which were successively invested with the purple; but the most
considerable portion flowed from the impure source of confiscations and
forfeitures. The Imperial estates were scattered through the provinces,
from Mauritania to Britain; but the rich and fertile soil of Cappadocia
tempted the monarch to acquire in that country his fairest possessions,
and either Constantine or his successors embraced the occasion of
justifying avarice by religious zeal. They suppressed the rich temple of
Comana, where the high priest of the goddess of war supported the dignity
of a sovereign prince; and they applied to their private use the
consecrated lands, which were inhabited by six thousand subjects or slaves
of the deity and her ministers. But these were not the valuable
inhabitants: the plains that stretch from the foot of Mount Argæus
to the banks of the Sarus, bred a generous race of horses, renowned above
all others in the ancient world for their majestic shape and incomparable
swiftness. These sacred animals, destined for the service of the palace
and the Imperial games, were protected by the laws from the profanation of
a vulgar master. The demesnes of Cappadocia were important enough to
require the inspection of a count; 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. 6, 7.
The chosen bands of cavalry and infantry, which guarded the person of the
emperor, were under the immediate command of the two counts of
the domestics. The whole number consisted of three thousand
five hundred men, divided into seven schools, or
troops, of five hundred each; and in the East, this honorable service was
almost entirely appropriated to the Armenians. Whenever, on public
ceremonies, they were drawn up in the courts and porticos of the palace,
their lofty stature, silent order, and splendid arms of silver and gold,
displayed a martial pomp not unworthy of the Roman majesty. From the seven
schools two companies of horse and foot were selected, of the protectors,
whose advantageous station was the hope and reward of the most deserving
soldiers. They mounted guard in the interior apartments, and were
occasionally despatched into the provinces, to execute with celerity and
vigor the orders of their master. The counts of the domestics had
succeeded to the office of the Prætorian præfects; like the præfects,
they aspired from the service of the palace to 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. Two or three hundred agents or
messengers were employed, under the jurisdiction of the master of the
offices, to announce the names of the annual consuls, and the edicts or
victories of the emperors. They insensibly assumed the license of
reporting whatever they could observe of the conduct either of magistrates
or of private citizens; and were soon considered as the eyes of the
monarch, and the scourge of the people. Under the warm influence of a
feeble reign, they multiplied to the incredible number of ten thousand,
disdained the mild though frequent admonitions of the laws, and exercised
in the profitable management of the posts a rapacious and insolent
oppression. These official spies, who regularly corresponded with the
palace, were encouraged by favor and reward, anxiously to watch the
progress of every treasonable design, from the faint and latent symptoms
of disaffection, to the actual preparation of an open revolt. Their
careless or criminal violation of truth and justice was covered by the
consecrated mask of zeal; and they might securely aim their poisoned
arrows at the breast either of the guilty or the innocent, who had
provoked their resentment, or refused to purchase their silence. A
faithful subject, of Syria perhaps, or of Britain, was exposed to the
danger, or at least to the dread, of being dragged in chains to the court
of Milan or Constantinople, to defend his life and fortune against the
malicious charge of these privileged informers. The ordinary
administration was conducted by those methods which extreme necessity can
alone palliate; and the defects of evidence were diligently supplied by
the use of torture.
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 and honor, 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 among the slaves of oriental
despotism, but among the Macedonians, who obeyed a limited monarch; among
the Rhodians, who flourished by the liberty of commerce; and even among
the sage Athenians, who had asserted and adorned the dignity of human
kind. The acquiescence of the provincials encouraged their governors to
acquire, or perhaps to usurp, a discretionary power of employing the rack,
to extort from vagrants or plebeian criminals the confession of their
guilt, till they insensibly proceeded to confound the distinction of rank,
and to disregard the privileges of Roman citizens. The apprehensions of
the subjects urged them to solicit, and the interest of the sovereign
engaged him to grant, a variety of special exemptions, which tacitly
allowed, and even authorized, the general use of torture. They protected
all persons of illustrious or honorable rank, bishops and their
presbyters, professors of the liberal arts, soldiers and their families,
municipal officers, and their posterity to the third generation, and all
children under the age of puberty. But a fatal maxim was introduced into
the new jurisprudence of the empire, that in the case of treason, which
included every offence that the subtlety of lawyers could derive from a
hostile intention towards the prince or
republic, all privileges were suspended, and all conditions were reduced
to the same ignominious level. As the safety of the emperor was avowedly
preferred to every consideration of justice or humanity, the dignity of
age and the tenderness of youth were alike exposed to the most cruel
tortures; and the terrors of a malicious information, which might select
them as the accomplices, or even as the witnesses, perhaps, of an
imaginary crime, perpetually hung over the heads of the principal citizens
of the Roman world.
These evils, however terrible they may appear, were confined to the
smaller number of Roman subjects, whose dangerous situation was in some
degree compensated by the enjoyment of those advantages, either of nature
or of fortune, which exposed them to the jealousy of the monarch. The
obscure millions of a great empire have much less to dread from the
cruelty than from the avarice of their masters, and their
humble happiness is principally affected by the grievance of excessive
taxes, which, gently pressing on the wealthy, descend with accelerated
weight on the meaner and more indigent classes of society. An ingenious
philosopher has calculated the universal measure of the public impositions
by the degrees of freedom and servitude; and ventures to assert, that,
according to an invariable law of nature, it must always increase with the
former, and diminish in a just proportion to the latter. But this
reflection, which would tend to alleviate the miseries of despotism, is
contradicted at least by the history of the Roman empire; which accuses
the same princes of despoiling the senate of its authority, and the
provinces of their wealth. Without abolishing all the various customs and
duties on merchandises, which are imperceptibly discharged by the apparent
choice of the purchaser, the policy of Constantine and his successors
preferred a simple and direct mode of taxation, more congenial to the
spirit of an arbitrary government.
The name and use of the indictions, which serve
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 diocese, during two months previous
to the first day of September. And by a very easy connection of ideas, the
word indiction was transferred to the measure of
tribute which it prescribed, and to the annual term which it allowed for
the payment. This general estimate of the supplies was proportioned to the
real and imaginary wants of the state; but as often as the expense
exceeded the revenue, or the revenue fell short of the computation, an
additional tax, under the name of superindiction,
was imposed on the people, and the most valuable attribute of sovereignty
was communicated to the Prætorian præfects, who, on some
occasions, were permitted to provide for the unforeseen and extraordinary
exigencies of the public service. The execution of these laws (which it
would be tedious to pursue in their minute and intricate detail) consisted
of two distinct operations: the resolving the general imposition into its
constituent parts, which were assessed on the provinces, the cities, and
the individuals of the Roman world; and the collecting the separate
contributions of the individuals, the cities, and the provinces, till the
accumulated sums were poured into the Imperial treasuries. But as the
account between the monarch and the subject was perpetually open, and as
the renewal of the demand anticipated the perfect discharge of the
preceding obligation, the weighty machine of the finances was moved by the
same hands round the circle of its yearly revolution. Whatever was
honorable or important in the administration of the revenue, was committed
to the wisdom of the præfects, 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
Decurions, who formed the corporations of the
cities, and whom the severity of the Imperial laws had condemned to
sustain the burdens of civil society. The whole landed property of the
empire (without excepting the patrimonial estates of the monarch) was the
object of ordinary taxation; and every new purchaser contracted the
obligations of the former proprietor. An accurate census, or survey, was
the only equitable mode of ascertaining the proportion which every citizen
should be obliged to contribute for the public service; and from the
well-known period of the indictions, there is reason to believe that this
difficult and expensive operation was repeated at the regular distance of
fifteen years. The lands were measured by surveyors, who were sent into
the provinces; their nature, whether arable or pasture, or vineyards or
woods, was distinctly reported; and an estimate was made of their common
value from the average produce of five years. The numbers of slaves and of
cattle constituted an essential part of the report; an oath was
administered to the proprietors, which bound them to disclose the true
state of their affairs; and their attempts to prevaricate, or elude the
intention of the legislator, were severely watched, and punished as a
capital crime, which included the double guilt of treason and sacrilege. 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 still more direct, and still more oppressive.
According to the different nature of lands, their real produce in the
various articles of wine or oil, corn or barley, wood or iron, was
transported by the labor or at the expense of the provincials * to the
Imperial magazines, from whence they were occasionally distributed for the
use of the court, of the army, and of two capitals, Rome and
Constantinople. The commissioners of the revenue were so frequently
obliged to make considerable purchases, that they were strictly prohibited
from allowing any compensation, or from receiving in money the value of
those supplies which were exacted in kind. In the primitive simplicity of
small communities, this method may be well adapted to collect the almost
voluntary offerings of the people; but it is at once susceptible of the
utmost latitude, and of the utmost strictness, which in a corrupt and
absolute monarchy must introduce a perpetual contest between the power of
oppression and the arts of fraud. The agriculture of the Roman provinces
was insensibly ruined, and, in the progress of despotism which tends to
disappoint its own purpose, the emperors were obliged to derive some merit
from the forgiveness of debts, or the remission of tributes, which their
subjects were utterly incapable of paying. According to the new division
of Italy, the fertile and happy province of Campania, the scene of the
early victories and of the delicious retirements of the citizens of Rome,
extended between the sea and the Apennine, from the Tiber to the Silarus.
Within sixty years after the death of Constantine, and on the evidence of
an actual survey, an exemption was granted in favor of three hundred and
thirty thousand English acres of desert and uncultivated land; which
amounted to one eighth of the whole surface of the province. As the
footsteps of the Barbarians had not yet been seen in Italy, the cause of
this amazing desolation, which is recorded in the laws, can be ascribed
only to the administration of the Roman emperors.
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 of every province or district, expressed the
number of tributary subjects, and the amount of the public impositions.
The latter of these sums was divided by the former; and the estimate, that
such a province contained so many capita, or
heads of tribute; and that each head was rated
at such a price, was universally received, not only in the popular, but
even in the legal computation. The value of a tributary head must have
varied, according to many accidental, or at least fluctuating
circumstances; but some knowledge has been preserved of a very curious
fact, the more important, since it relates to one of the richest provinces
of the Roman empire, and which now flourishes as the most splendid of the
European kingdoms. The rapacious ministers of Constantius had exhausted
the wealth of Gaul, by exacting twenty-five pieces of gold for the annual
tribute of every head. The humane policy of his successor reduced the
capitation to seven pieces. 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 thinking mind, who will be
at once surprised by the equality, and by the
enormity, of the capitation. An attempt to
explain them may perhaps reflect some light on the interesting subject of
the finances of the declining empire.
I. It is obvious, that, as long as the immutable constitution of human
nature produces and maintains so unequal a division of property, the most
numerous part of the community would be deprived of their subsistence, by
the equal assessment of a tax from which the sovereign would derive a very
trifling revenue. Such indeed might be the theory of the Roman capitation;
but in the practice, this unjust equality was no longer felt, as the
tribute was collected on the principle of a real,
not of a personal imposition. * Several indigent
citizens contributed to compose a single head,
or share of taxation; while the wealthy provincial, in proportion to his
fortune, alone represented several of those imaginary beings. In a
poetical request, addressed to one of the last and most deserving of the
Roman princes who reigned in Gaul, Sidonius Apollinaris personifies his
tribute under the figure of a triple monster, the Geryon of the Grecian
fables, and entreats the new Hercules that he would most graciously be
pleased to save his life by cutting off three of his heads. The fortune of
Sidonius far exceeded the customary wealth of a poet; but if he had
pursued the allusion, he might have painted many of the Gallic nobles with
the hundred heads of the deadly Hydra, spreading over the face of the
country, and devouring the substance of a hundred families. II. The
difficulty of allowing an annual sum of about nine pounds sterling, even
for the average of the capitation of Gaul, may be rendered more evident by
the comparison of the present state of the same country, as it is now
governed by the absolute monarch of an industrious, wealthy, and
affectionate people. The taxes of France cannot be magnified, either by
fear or by flattery, beyond the annual amount of eighteen millions
sterling, which ought perhaps to be shared among four and twenty millions
of inhabitants. Seven millions of these, in the capacity of fathers, or
brothers, or husbands, may discharge the obligations of the remaining
multitude of women and children; yet the equal proportion of each
tributary subject will scarcely rise above fifty shillings of our money,
instead of a proportion almost four times as considerable, which was
regularly imposed on their Gallic ancestors. The reason of this difference
may be found, not so much in the relative scarcity or plenty of gold and
silver, as in the different state of society, in ancient Gaul and in
modern France. In a country where personal freedom is the privilege of
every subject, the whole mass of taxes, whether they are levied on
property or on consumption, may be fairly divided among the whole body of
the nation. But the far greater part of the lands of ancient Gaul, as well
as of the other provinces of the Roman world, were cultivated by slaves,
or by peasants, whose dependent condition was a less rigid servitude. In
such a state the poor were maintained at the expense of the masters who
enjoyed the fruits of their labor; and as the rolls of tribute were filled
only with the names of those citizens who possessed the means of an
honorable, or at least of a decent subsistence, the comparative smallness
of their numbers explains and justifies the high rate of their capitation.
The truth of this assertion may be illustrated by the following example:
The Ædui, one of the most powerful and civilized tribes or cities
of Gaul, occupied an extent of territory, which now contains about five
hundred thousand inhabitants, in the two ecclesiastical dioceses of Autun
and Nevers; and with the probable accession of those of Chalons and Macon,
the population would amount to eight hundred thousand souls. In the time
of Constantine, the territory of the Ædui afforded no more than
twenty-five thousand heads of capitation, of
whom seven thousand were discharged by that prince from the intolerable
weight of tribute. 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 seven
millions sterling, which were reduced to two millions 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 class of free citizens to escape. With the
view of sharing that species of wealth which is derived from art or labor,
and which exists in money or in merchandise, the emperors imposed a
distinct and personal tribute on the trading part of their subjects. Some
exemptions, very strictly confined both in time and place, were allowed to
the proprietors who disposed of the produce of their own estates. Some
indulgence was granted to the profession of the liberal arts: but every
other branch of commercial industry was affected by the severity of the
law. The honorable merchant of Alexandria, who imported the gems and
spices of India for the use of the western world; the usurer, who derived
from the interest of money a silent and ignominious profit; the ingenious
manufacturer, the diligent mechanic, and even the most obscure retailer of
a sequestered village, were obliged to admit the officers of the revenue
into the partnership of their gain; and the sovereign of the Roman empire,
who tolerated the profession, consented to share the infamous salary, of
public prostitutes. As this general tax upon industry was collected every
fourth year, it was styled the Lustral Contribution:
and the historian Zosimus laments that the approach of the fatal period
was announced by the tears and terrors of the citizens, who were often
compelled by the impending scourge to embrace the most abhorred and
unnatural methods of procuring the sum at which their property had been
assessed. The testimony of Zosimus cannot indeed be justified from the
charge of passion and prejudice; but, from the nature of this tribute it
seems reasonable to conclude, that it was arbitrary in the distribution,
and extremely rigorous in the mode of collecting. The secret wealth of
commerce, and the precarious profits of art or labor, are susceptible only
of a discretionary valuation, which is seldom disadvantageous to the
interest of the treasury; and as the person of the trader supplies the
want of a visible and permanent security, the payment of the imposition,
which, in the case of a land tax, may be obtained by the seizure of
property, can rarely be extorted by any other means than those of corporal
punishments. The cruel treatment of the insolvent debtors of the state, is
attested, and was perhaps mitigated by a very humane edict of Constantine,
who, disclaiming the use of racks and of scourges, allots a spacious and
airy prison for the place of their confinement.
These general taxes were imposed and levied by the absolute authority of
the monarch; but the occasional offerings of the coronary goldstill
retained the name and semblance of popular consent. It was an ancient
custom that the allies of the republic, who ascribed their safety or
deliverance to the success of the Roman arms, and even the cities of
Italy, who admired the virtues of their victorious general, adorned the
pomp of his triumph by their voluntary gifts of crowns of gold, which
after the ceremony were consecrated in the temple of Jupiter, to remain a
lasting monument of his glory to future ages. The progress of zeal and
flattery soon multiplied the number, and increased the size, of these
popular donations; and the triumph of Cæsar was enriched with two
thousand eight hundred and twenty-two massy crowns, whose weight amounted
to twenty thousand four hundred and fourteen pounds of gold. This treasure
was immediately melted down by the prudent dictator, who was satisfied
that it would be more serviceable to his soldiers than to the gods: his
example was imitated by his successors; and the custom was introduced of
exchanging these splendid ornaments for the more acceptable present of the
current gold coin of the empire. The spontaneous offering was at length
exacted as the debt of duty; and instead of being confined to the occasion
of a triumph, it was supposed to be granted by the several cities and
provinces of the monarchy, as often as the emperor condescended to
announce his accession, his consulship, the birth of a son, the creation
of a Cæsar, a victory over the Barbarians, or any other real or
imaginary event which graced the annals of his reign. The peculiar free
gift of the senate of Rome was fixed by custom at sixteen hundred pounds
of gold, or about sixty-four thousand pounds sterling. The oppressed
subjects celebrated their own felicity, that their sovereign should
graciously consent to accept this feeble but voluntary testimony of their
loyalty and gratitude.
A people elated by pride, or soured by discontent, are seldom qualified to
form a just estimate of their actual situation. The subjects of
Constantine were incapable of discerning the decline of genius and manly
virtue, which so far degraded them below the dignity of their ancestors;
but they could feel and lament the rage of tyranny, the relaxation of
discipline, and the increase of taxes. The impartial historian, who
acknowledges the justice of their complaints, will observe some favorable
circumstances which tended to alleviate the misery of their condition. The
threatening tempest of Barbarians, which so soon subverted the foundations
of Roman greatness, was still repelled, or suspended, on the frontiers.
The arts of luxury and literature were cultivated, and the elegant
pleasures of society were enjoyed, by the inhabitants of a considerable
portion of the globe. The forms, the pomp, and the expense of the civil
administration contributed to restrain the irregular license of the
soldiers; and although the laws were violated by power, or perverted by
subtlety, the sage principles of the Roman jurisprudence preserved a sense
of order and equity, unknown to the despotic governments of the East. The
rights of mankind might derive some protection from religion and
philosophy; and the name of freedom, which could no longer alarm, might
sometimes admonish, the successors of Augustus, that they did not reign
over a nation of Slaves or Barbarians.
Character Of Constantine.—Gothic War.—Death Of Constantine.—Division Of The Empire Among His Three Sons.— Persian War.—Tragic Deaths Of Constantine The Younger And Constans.—Usurpation Of Magnentius.—Civil War.—Victory Of Constantius.
The character of the prince who removed the seat of empire, and introduced
such important changes into the civil and religious constitution of his
country, has fixed the attention, and divided the opinions, of mankind. By
the grateful zeal of the Christians, the deliverer of the church has been
decorated with every attribute of a hero, and even of a saint; while the
discontent of the vanquished party has compared Constantine to the most
abhorred of those tyrants, who, by their vice and weakness, dishonored the
Imperial purple. The same passions have in some degree been perpetuated to
succeeding generations, and the character of Constantine is considered,
even in the present age, as an object either of satire or of panegyric. By
the impartial union of those defects which are confessed by his warmest
admirers, and of those virtues which are acknowledged by his
most-implacable enemies, we might hope to delineate a just portrait of
that extraordinary man, which the truth and candor of history should adopt
without a blush. But it would soon appear, that the vain attempt to blend
such discordant colors, and to reconcile such inconsistent qualities, must
produce a figure monstrous rather than human, unless it is viewed in its
proper and distinct lights, by a careful separation of the different
periods of the reign of Constantine.
The person, as well as the mind, of Constantine, had been enriched by
nature with her choicest endowments. His stature was lofty, his countenance
majestic, his deportment graceful; his strength and activity were
displayed in every manly exercise, and from his earliest youth, to a very
advanced season of life, he preserved the vigor of his constitution by a
strict adherence to the domestic virtues of chastity and temperance. He
delighted in the social intercourse of familiar conversation; and though
he might sometimes indulge his disposition to raillery with less reserve
than was required by the severe dignity of his station, the courtesy and
liberality of his manners gained the hearts of all who approached him. The
sincerity of his friendship has been suspected; yet he showed, on some
occasions, that he was not incapable of a warm and lasting attachment. The
disadvantage of an illiterate education had not prevented him from forming
a just estimate of the value of learning; and the arts and sciences
derived some encouragement from the munificent protection of Constantine.
In the despatch of business, his diligence was indefatigable; and the
active powers of his mind were almost continually exercised in reading,
writing, or meditating, in giving audiences to ambassadors, and in
examining the complaints of his subjects. Even those who censured the
propriety of his measures were compelled to acknowledge, that he possessed
magnanimity to conceive, and patience to execute, the most arduous
designs, without being checked either by the prejudices of education, or
by the clamors of the multitude. In the field, he infused his own intrepid
spirit into the troops, whom he conducted with the talents of a consummate
general; and to his abilities, rather than to his fortune, we may ascribe
the signal victories which he obtained over the foreign and domestic foes
of the republic. He loved glory as the reward, perhaps as the motive, of
his labors. The boundless ambition, which, from the moment of his
accepting the purple at York, appears as the ruling passion of his soul,
may be justified by the dangers of his own situation, by the character of
his rivals, by the consciousness of superior merit, and by the prospect
that his success would enable him to restore peace and order throughout 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 Tyber, or even in the plains of
Hadrianople, such is the character which, with a few exceptions, he might
have transmitted to posterity. But the conclusion of his reign (according
to the moderate and indeed tender sentence of a writer of the same age)
degraded him from the rank which he had acquired among the most deserving
of the Roman princes. In the life of Augustus, we behold the tyrant of the
republic, converted, almost by imperceptible degrees, into the father of
his country, and of human kind. In that of Constantine, we may contemplate
a hero, who had so long inspired his subjects with love, and his enemies
with terror, degenerating into a cruel and dissolute monarch, corrupted by
his fortune, or raised by conquest above the necessity of dissimulation.
The general peace which he maintained during the last fourteen years of
his reign, was a period of apparent splendor rather than of real
prosperity; and the old age of Constantine was disgraced by the opposite
yet reconcilable vices of rapaciousness and prodigality. The accumulated
treasures found in the palaces of Maxentius and Licinius, were lavishly
consumed; the various innovations introduced by the conqueror, were
attended with an increasing expense; the cost of his buildings, his court,
and his festivals, required an immediate and plentiful supply; and the
oppression of the people was the only fund which could support the
magnificence of the sovereign. 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, and the emperor himself, though he
still retained the obedience, gradually lost the esteem, of his subjects.
The dress and manners, which, towards the decline of life, he chose to
affect, served only to degrade him in the eyes of mankind. The Asiatic
pomp, which had been adopted by the pride of Diocletian, assumed an air of
softness and effeminacy in the person of Constantine. He is represented
with false hair of various colors, laboriously arranged by the skilful
artists to the times; a diadem of a new and more expensive fashion; a
profusion of gems and pearls, of collars and bracelets, and a variegated
flowing robe of silk, most curiously embroidered with flowers of gold. In
such apparel, scarcely to be excused by the youth and folly of Elagabalus,
we are at a loss to discover the wisdom of an aged monarch, and the
simplicity of a Roman veteran. A mind thus relaxed by prosperity and
indulgence, was incapable of rising to that magnanimity which disdains
suspicion, and dares to forgive. The deaths of Maximian and Licinius may
perhaps be justified by the maxims of policy, as they are taught in the
schools of tyrants; but an impartial narrative of the executions, or
rather murders, which sullied the declining age of Constantine, will
suggest to our most candid thoughts the idea of a prince who could
sacrifice without reluctance the laws of justice, and the feelings of
nature, to the dictates either of his passions or of his interest.
The same fortune which so invariably followed the standard of Constantine,
seemed to secure the hopes and comforts of his domestic life. Those among
his predecessors who had enjoyed the longest and most prosperous reigns,
Augustus Trajan, and Diocletian, had been disappointed of posterity; and
the frequent revolutions had never allowed sufficient time for any
Imperial family to grow up and multiply under the shade of the purple. But
the royalty of the Flavian line, which had been first ennobled by the
Gothic Claudius, descended through several generations; and Constantine
himself derived from his royal father the hereditary honors which he
transmitted to his children. The emperor had been twice married.
Minervina, the obscure but lawful object of his youthful attachment, 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 Optatus and
Nepotianus, two senators of noble birth and of consular dignity. His third
sister, Constantia, was distinguished by her preeminence of greatness and
of misery. She remained the widow of the vanquished Licinius; and it was
by her entreaties, that an innocent boy, the offspring of their marriage,
preserved, for some time, his life, the title of Cæsar, and a
precarious hope of the succession. Besides the females, and the allies of
the Flavian house, ten or twelve males, to whom the language of modern
courts would apply the title of princes of the blood, seemed, according to
the order of their birth, to be destined either to inherit or to support
the throne of Constantine. But in less than thirty years, this numerous
and increasing family was reduced to the persons of Constantius and
Julian, who alone had survived a series of crimes and calamities, such as
the tragic poets have deplored in the devoted lines of Pelops and of
Cadmus.
Crispus, the eldest son of Constantine, and the presumptive heir of the
empire, is represented by impartial historians as an amiable and
accomplished youth. The care of his education, or at least of his studies,
was intrusted to Lactantius, the most eloquent of the Christians; a
preceptor admirably qualified to form the taste, and the excite the
virtues, of his illustrious disciple. At the age of seventeen, Crispus was
invested with the title of Cæsar, and the administration of the
Gallic provinces, where the inroads of the Germans gave him an early
occasion of signalizing his military prowess. In the civil war which broke
out soon afterwards, the father and son divided their powers; and this
history has already celebrated the valor as well as conduct displayed by
the latter, in forcing the straits of the Hellespont, so obstinately
defended by the superior fleet of Licinius. This naval victory contributed
to determine the event of the war; and the names of Constantine and of
Crispus were united in the joyful acclamations of their eastern subjects;
who loudly proclaimed, that the world had been subdued, and was now
governed, by an emperor endowed with every virtue; and by his illustrious
son, a prince beloved of Heaven, and the lively image of his father's
perfections. The public favor, which seldom accompanies old age, diffused
its lustre over the youth of Crispus. He deserved the esteem, and he
engaged the affections, of the court, the army, and the people. The
experienced merit of a reigning monarch is acknowledged by his subjects
with reluctance, and frequently denied with partial and discontented
murmurs; while, from the opening virtues of his successor, they fondly
conceive the most unbounded hopes of private as well as public felicity.
This dangerous popularity soon excited the attention of Constantine, who,
both as a father and as a king, was impatient of an equal. Instead of
attempting to secure the allegiance of his son by the generous ties of
confidence and gratitude, he resolved to prevent the mischiefs which might
be apprehended from dissatisfied ambition. Crispus soon had reason to
complain, that while his infant brother Constantius was sent, with the
title of Cæsar, to reign over his peculiar department of the Gallic
provinces, he, a prince of mature years, who had
performed such recent and signal services, instead of being raised to the
superior rank of Augustus, was confined almost a prisoner to his father's
court; and exposed, without power or defence, to every calumny which the
malice of his enemies could suggest. Under such painful circumstances, the
royal youth might not always be able to compose his behavior, or suppress
his discontent; and we may be assured, that he was encompassed by a train
of indiscreet or perfidious followers, who assiduously studied to inflame,
and who were perhaps instructed to betray, the unguarded warmth of his
resentment. An edict of Constantine, published about this time, manifestly
indicates his real or affected suspicions, that a secret conspiracy had
been formed against his person and government. By all the allurements of
honors and rewards, he invites informers of every degree to accuse without
exception his magistrates or ministers, his friends or his most intimate
favorites, protesting, with a solemn asseveration, that he himself will
listen to the charge, that he himself will revenge his injuries; and
concluding with a prayer, which discovers some apprehension of danger,
that the providence of the Supreme Being may still continue to protect the
safety of the emperor and of the empire.
The informers, who complied with so liberal an invitation, were
sufficiently versed in the arts of courts to select the friends and
adherents of Crispus as the guilty persons; nor is there any reason to
distrust the veracity of the emperor, who had promised an ample measure of
revenge and punishment. The policy of Constantine maintained, however, the
same appearances of regard and confidence towards a son, whom he began to
consider as his most irreconcilable enemy. Medals were struck with the
customary vows for the long and auspicious reign of the young Cæsar;
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 for celebrating the
august ceremony of the twentieth year of the reign of Constantine; and the
emperor, for that purpose, removed his court from Nicomedia to Rome, where
the most splendid preparations had been made for his reception. Every eye,
and every tongue, affected to express their sense of the general
happiness, and the veil of ceremony and dissimulation was drawn for a
while over the darkest designs of revenge and murder. In the midst of the
festival, the unfortunate Crispus was apprehended by order of the emperor,
who laid aside the tenderness of a father, without assuming the equity of
a judge. The examination was short and private; and as it was thought
decent to conceal the fate of the young prince from the eyes of the Roman
people, he was sent under a strong guard to Pola, in Istria, where, soon
afterwards, he was put to death, either by the hand of the executioner, or
by the more gentle operations of poison. The Cæsar Licinius, a youth
of amiable manners, was involved in the ruin of Crispus: and the stern
jealousy of Constantine was unmoved by the prayers and tears of his
favorite sister, pleading for the life of a son, whose rank was his only
crime, and whose loss she did not long survive. The story of these unhappy
princes, the nature and evidence of their guilt, the forms of their trial,
and the circumstances of their death, were buried in mysterious obscurity;
and the courtly bishop, who has celebrated in an elaborate work the
virtues and piety of his hero, observes a prudent silence on the subject
of these tragic events. Such haughty contempt for the opinion of mankind,
whilst it imprints an indelible stain on the memory of Constantine, must
remind us of the very different behavior of one of the greatest monarchs
of the present age. The Czar Peter, in the full possession of despotic
power, submitted to the judgment of Russia, of Europe, and of posterity,
the reasons which had compelled him to subscribe the condemnation of a
criminal, or at least of a degenerate son.
The innocence of Crispus was so universally acknowledged, that the modern
Greeks, who adore the memory of their founder, are reduced to palliate the
guilt of a parricide, which the common feelings of human nature forbade
them to justify. They pretend, that as soon as the afflicted father
discovered the falsehood of the accusation by which his credulity had been
so fatally misled, he published to the world his repentance and remorse;
that he mourned forty days, during which he abstained from the use of the
bath, and all the ordinary comforts of life; and that, for the lasting
instruction of posterity, he erected a golden statue of Crispus, with this
memorable inscription: To my son, whom I unjustly condemned. A tale so
moral and so interesting would deserve to be supported by less
exceptionable authority; but if we consult the more ancient and authentic
writers, they will inform us, that the repentance of Constantine was
manifested only in acts of blood and revenge; and that he atoned for the
murder of an innocent son, by the execution, perhaps, of a guilty wife.
They ascribe the misfortunes of Crispus to the arts of his step-mother
Fausta, whose implacable hatred, or whose disappointed love, renewed in
the palace of Constantine the ancient tragedy of Hippolitus and of Phædra.
Like the daughter of Minos, the daughter of Maximian accused her
son-in-law of an incestuous attempt on the chastity of his father's wife;
and easily obtained, from the jealousy of the emperor, a sentence of death
against a young prince, whom she considered with reason as the most
formidable rival of her own children. But Helena, the aged mother of
Constantine, lamented and revenged the untimely fate of her grandson
Crispus; nor was it long before a real or pretended discovery was made,
that Fausta herself entertained a criminal connection with a slave
belonging to the Imperial stables. Her condemnation and punishment were
the instant consequences of the charge; and the adulteress was suffocated
by the steam of a bath, which, for that purpose, had been heated to an
extraordinary degree. By some it will perhaps be thought, that the
remembrance of a conjugal union of twenty years, and the honor of their
common offspring, the destined heirs of the throne, might have softened
the obdurate heart of Constantine, and persuaded him to suffer his wife,
however guilty she might appear, to expiate her offences in a solitary
prison. But it seems a superfluous labor to weigh the propriety, unless we
could ascertain the truth, of this singular event, which is attended with
some circumstances of doubt and perplexity. Those who have attacked, and
those who have defended, the character of Constantine, have alike
disregarded two very remarkable passages of two orations pronounced under
the succeeding reign. The former celebrates the virtues, the beauty, and
the fortune of the empress Fausta, the daughter, wife, sister, and mother
of so many princes. The latter asserts, in explicit terms, that the mother
of the younger Constantine, who was slain three years after his father's
death, survived to weep over the fate of her son. Notwithstanding the
positive testimony of several writers of the Pagan as well as of the
Christian religion, there may still remain some reason to believe, or at
least to suspect, that Fausta escaped the blind and suspicious cruelty of
her husband. * The deaths of a son and a nephew, with the execution of a
great number of respectable, and perhaps innocent friends, 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.
By the death of Crispus, the inheritance of the empire seemed to devolve
on the three sons of Fausta, who have been already mentioned under the
names of Constantine, of Constantius, and of Constans. These young princes
were successively invested with the title of Cæsar; and the dates of
their promotion may be referred to the tenth, the twentieth, and the
thirtieth years of the reign of their father. This conduct, though it
tended to multiply the future masters of the Roman world, might be excused
by the partiality of paternal affection; but it is not so easy to
understand the motives of the emperor, when he endangered the safety both
of his family and of his people, by the unnecessary elevation of his two
nephews, Dalmatius and Hannibalianus. The former was raised, by the title
of Cæsar, to an equality with his cousins. In favor of the latter,
Constantine invented the new and singular appellation of Nobilissimus;
to which he annexed the flattering distinction of a robe of purple and
gold. But of the whole series of Roman princes in any age of the empire,
Hannibalianus alone was distinguished by the title of King; a name which
the subjects of Tiberius would have detested, as the profane and cruel
insult of capricious tyranny. The use of such a title, even as it appears
under the reign of Constantine, is a strange and unconnected fact, which
can scarcely be admitted on the joint authority of Imperial medals and
contemporary writers.
The whole empire was deeply interested in the education of these five
youths, the acknowledged successors of Constantine. The exercise of the
body prepared them for the fatigues of war and the duties of active life.
Those who occasionally mention the education or talents of Constantius,
allow that he excelled in the gymnastic arts of leaping and running that
he was a dexterous archer, a skilful horseman, and a master of all the
different weapons used in the service either of the cavalry or of the
infantry. 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 the important task of
instructing the royal youths in the science of government, and the
knowledge of mankind. But the genius of Constantine himself had been
formed by adversity and experience. In the free intercourse of private
life, and amidst the dangers of the court of Galerius, he had learned to
command his own passions, to encounter those of his equals, and to depend
for his present safety and future greatness on the prudence and firmness
of his personal conduct. His destined successors had the misfortune of
being born and educated in the imperial purple. Incessantly surrounded
with a train of flatterers, they passed their youth in the enjoyment of
luxury, and the expectation of a throne; nor would the dignity of their
rank permit them to descend from that elevated station from whence the
various characters of human nature appear to wear a smooth and uniform
aspect. The indulgence of Constantine admitted them, at a very tender age,
to share the administration of the empire; and they studied the art of
reigning, at the expense of the people intrusted to their care. The
younger Constantine was appointed to hold his court in Gaul; and his
brother Constantius exchanged that department, the ancient patrimony of
their father, for the more opulent, but less martial, countries of the
East. Italy, the Western Illyricum, and Africa, were accustomed to revere
Constans, the third of his sons, as the representative of the great
Constantine. He fixed Dalmatius on the Gothic frontier, to which he
annexed the government of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece. The city of Cæsarea
was chosen for the residence of Hannibalianus; and the provinces of
Pontus, Cappadocia, and the Lesser Armenia, were destined to form the
extent of his new kingdom. For each of these princes a suitable
establishment was provided. A just proportion of guards, of legions, and
of auxiliaries, was allotted for their respective dignity and defence. The
ministers and generals, who were placed about their persons, were such as
Constantine could trust to assist, and even to control, these youthful
sovereigns in the exercise of their delegated power. As they advanced in
years and experience, the limits of their authority were insensibly
enlarged: but the emperor always reserved for himself the title of
Augustus; and while he showed the Cæsars
to the armies and provinces, he maintained every part of the empire in
equal obedience to its supreme head. The tranquillity of the last fourteen
years of his reign was scarcely interrupted by the contemptible
insurrection of a camel-driver in the Island of Cyprus, or by the active
part which the policy of Constantine engaged him 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
Tanais; and they 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 exercises of war, or rather of
rapine, directed the vagrant motions of the Sarmatians. The movable camps
or cities, the ordinary residence of their wives and children, consisted
only of large wagons drawn by oxen, and covered in the form of tents. The
military strength of the nation was composed of cavalry; and the custom of
their warriors, to lead in their hand one or two spare horses, enabled
them to advance and to retreat with a rapid diligence, which surprised the
security, and eluded the pursuit, of a distant enemy. Their poverty of
iron prompted their rude industry to invent a sort of cuirass, which was
capable of resisting a sword or javelin, though it was formed only of
horses' hoofs, cut into thin and polished slices, carefully laid over each
other in the manner of scales or feathers, and strongly sewed upon an
under garment of coarse linen. The offensive arms of the Sarmatians were
short daggers, long lances, and a weighty bow with a quiver of arrows.
They were reduced to the necessity of employing fish-bones for the points
of their weapons; but the custom of dipping them in a venomous liquor,
that poisoned the wounds which they inflicted, is alone sufficient to
prove the most savage manners, since a people impressed with a sense of
humanity would have abhorred so cruel a practice, and a nation skilled in
the arts of war would have disdained so impotent a resource. Whenever
these Barbarians issued from their deserts in quest of prey, their shaggy
beards, uncombed locks, the furs with which they were covered from head to
foot, and their fierce countenances, which seemed to express the innate
cruelty of their minds, inspired the more civilized provincials of Rome
with horror and dismay.
The tender Ovid, after a youth spent in the enjoyment of fame and luxury,
was condemned to a hopeless exile on the frozen banks of the Danube, where
he was exposed, almost without defence, to the fury of these monsters of
the desert, with whose stern spirits he feared that his gentle shade might
hereafter be confounded. In his pathetic, but sometimes unmanly
lamentations, he describes in the most lively colors the dress and
manners, the arms and inroads, of the Getæ and Sarmatians, who were
associated for the purposes of destruction; and from the accounts of
history there is some reason to believe that these Sarmatians were the
Jazygæ, one of the most numerous and warlike tribes of the nation.
The allurements of plenty engaged them to seek a permanent establishment
on the frontiers of the empire. Soon after the reign of Augustus, they
obliged the Dacians, who subsisted by fishing on the banks of the River
Teyss or Tibiscus, to retire into the hilly country, and to abandon to the
victorious Sarmatians the fertile plains of the Upper Hungary, which are
bounded by the course of the Danube and the semicircular enclosure of the
Carpathian Mountains. In this advantageous position, they watched or
suspended the moment of attack, as they were provoked by injuries or
appeased by presents; they gradually acquired the skill of using more
dangerous weapons, and although the Sarmatians did not illustrate their
name by any memorable exploits, they occasionally assisted their eastern
and western neighbors, the Goths and the Germans, with a formidable body
of cavalry. They lived under the irregular aristocracy of their
chieftains: but after they had received into their bosom the fugitive
Vandals, who yielded to the pressure of the Gothic power, they seem to
have chosen a king from that nation, and from the illustrious race of the
Astingi, who had formerly dwelt on the shores of the northern ocean.
This motive of enmity must have inflamed the subjects of contention, which
perpetually arise on the confines of warlike and independent nations. The
Vandal princes were stimulated by fear and revenge; the Gothic kings
aspired to extend their dominion from the Euxine to the frontiers of
Germany; and the waters of the Maros, a small river which falls into the
Teyss, were stained with the blood of the contending Barbarians. After
some experience of the superior strength and numbers of their adversaries,
the Sarmatians implored the protection of the Roman monarch, who beheld
with pleasure the discord of the nations, but who was justly alarmed by
the progress of the Gothic arms. As soon as Constantine had declared
himself in favor of the weaker party, the haughty Araric, king of the
Goths, instead of expecting the attack of the legions, boldly passed the
Danube, and spread terror and devastation through the province of Mæsia.
To oppose the inroad of this destroying host, the aged emperor took the
field in person; but on this occasion either his conduct or his fortune
betrayed the glory which he had acquired in so many foreign and domestic
wars. He had the mortification of seeing his troops fly before an
inconsiderable detachment of the Barbarians, who pursued them to the edge
of their fortified camp, and obliged him to consult his safety by a
precipitate and ignominious retreat. * The event of a second and more
successful action retrieved the honor of the Roman name; and the powers of
art and discipline prevailed, after an obstinate contest, over the efforts
of irregular valor. The broken army of the Goths abandoned the field of
battle, the wasted province, and the passage of the Danube: and although
the eldest of the sons of Constantine was permitted to supply the place of
his father, the merit of the victory, which diffused universal joy, was
ascribed to the auspicious counsels of the emperor himself.
He contributed at least to improve this advantage, by his negotiations
with the free and warlike people of Chersonesus, whose capital, situate on
the western coast of the Tauric or Crimæan peninsula, still retained
some vestiges of a Grecian colony, and was governed by a perpetual
magistrate, assisted by a council of senators, emphatically styled the
Fathers of the City. The Chersonites were animated against the Goths, by
the memory of the wars, which, in the preceding century, they had
maintained with unequal forces against the invaders of their country. They
were connected with the Romans by the mutual benefits of commerce; as they
were supplied from the provinces of Asia with corn and manufactures, which
they purchased with their only productions, salt, wax, and hides. Obedient
to the requisition of Constantine, they prepared, under the conduct of
their magistrate Diogenes, a considerable army, of which the principal
strength consisted in cross-bows and military chariots. The speedy march
and intrepid attack of the Chersonites, by diverting the attention of the
Goths, assisted the operations of the Imperial generals. The Goths,
vanquished on every side, were driven into the mountains, where, in the
course of a severe campaign, above a hundred thousand were computed to
have perished by cold and hunger. Peace was at length granted to their
humble supplications; the eldest son of Araric was accepted as the most
valuable hostage; and Constantine endeavored to convince their chiefs, by
a liberal distribution of honors and rewards, how far the friendship of
the Romans was preferable to their enmity. In the expressions of his
gratitude towards the faithful Chersonites, the emperor was still more
magnificent. The pride of the nation was gratified by the splendid and
almost royal decorations bestowed on their magistrate and his successors.
A perpetual exemption from all duties was stipulated for their vessels
which traded to the ports of the Black Sea. A regular subsidy was
promised, of iron, corn, oil, and of every supply which could be useful
either in peace or war. But it was thought that the Sarmatians were
sufficiently rewarded by their deliverance from impending ruin; and the
emperor, perhaps with too strict an economy, deducted some part of the
expenses of the war from the customary gratifications which were allowed
to that turbulent nation.
Exasperated by this apparent neglect, the Sarmatians soon forgot, with the
levity of barbarians, the services which they had so lately received, and
the dangers which still threatened their safety. Their inroads on the
territory of the empire provoked the indignation of Constantine to leave
them to their fate; and he no longer opposed the ambition of Geberic, a
renowned warrior, who had recently ascended the Gothic throne. Wisumar,
the Vandal king, whilst alone, and unassisted, he defended his dominions
with undaunted courage, was vanquished and slain in a decisive battle,
which swept away the flower of the Sarmatian youth. * The remainder of the
nation embraced the desperate expedient of arming their slaves, a hardy
race of hunters and herdsmen, by whose tumultuary aid they revenged their
defeat, and expelled the invader from their confines. But they soon
discovered that they had exchanged a foreign for a domestic enemy, more
dangerous and more implacable. Enraged by their former servitude, elated
by their present glory, the slaves, under the name of Limigantes, claimed
and usurped the possession of the country which they had saved. Their
masters, unable to withstand the ungoverned fury of the populace,
preferred the hardships of exile to the tyranny of their servants. Some of
the fugitive Sarmatians solicited a less ignominious dependence, under the
hostile standard of the Goths. A more numerous band retired beyond the
Carpathian Mountains, among the Quadi, their German allies, and were
easily admitted to share a superfluous waste of uncultivated land. But the
far greater part of the distressed nation turned their eyes towards the
fruitful provinces of Rome. Imploring the protection and forgiveness of
the emperor, they solemnly promised, as subjects in peace, and as soldiers
in war, the most inviolable fidelity to the empire which should graciously
receive them into its bosom. According to the maxims adopted by Probus and
his successors, the offers of this barbarian colony were eagerly accepted;
and a competent portion of lands in the provinces of Pannonia, Thrace,
Macedonia, and Italy, were immediately assigned for the habitation and
subsistence of three hundred thousand Sarmatians.
By chastising the pride of the Goths, and by accepting the homage of a
suppliant nation, Constantine asserted the majesty of the Roman empire;
and the ambassadors of Æthiopia, Persia, and the most remote
countries of India, congratulated the peace and prosperity of his
government. If he reckoned, among the favors of fortune, the death of his
eldest son, of his nephew, and perhaps of his wife, he enjoyed an
uninterrupted flow of private as well as public felicity, till the
thirtieth year of his reign; a period which none of his predecessors,
since Augustus, had been permitted to celebrate. Constantine survived that
solemn festival about ten months; and at the mature age of sixty-four,
after a short illness, he ended his memorable life at the palace of
Aquyrion, in the suburbs of Nicomedia, whither he had retired for the
benefit of the air, and with the hope of recruiting his exhausted strength
by the use of the warm baths. The excessive demonstrations of grief, or at
least of mourning, surpassed whatever had been practised on any former
occasion. Notwithstanding the claims of the senate and people of ancient
Rome, the corpse of the deceased emperor, according to his last request,
was transported to the city, which was destined to preserve the name and
memory of its founder. The body of Constantine adorned with the vain
symbols of greatness, the purple and diadem, was deposited on a golden bed
in one of the apartments of the palace, which for that purpose had been
splendidly furnished and illuminated. The forms of the court were strictly
maintained. Every day, at the appointed hours, the principal officers of
the state, the army, and the household, approaching the person of their
sovereign with bended knees and a composed countenance, offered their
respectful homage as seriously as if he had been still alive. From motives
of policy, this theatrical representation was for some time continued; nor
could flattery neglect the opportunity of remarking that Constantine
alone, by the peculiar indulgence of Heaven, had reigned after his death.
But this reign could subsist only in empty pageantry; and it was soon
discovered that the will of the most absolute monarch is seldom obeyed,
when his subjects have no longer anything to hope from his favor, or to
dread from his resentment. The same ministers and generals, who bowed with
such referential awe before the inanimate corpse of their deceased
sovereign, were engaged in secret consultations to exclude his two
nephews, Dalmatius and Hannibalianus, from the share which he had assigned
them in the succession of the empire. We are too imperfectly acquainted
with the court of Constantine to form any judgment of the real motives
which influenced the leaders of the conspiracy; unless we should suppose
that they were actuated by a spirit of jealousy and revenge against the præfect
Ablavius, a proud favorite, who had long directed the counsels and abused
the confidence of the late emperor. The arguments, by which they solicited
the concurrence of the soldiers and people, are of a more obvious nature;
and they might with decency, as well as truth, insist on the superior rank
of the children of Constantine, the danger of multiplying the number of
sovereigns, and the impending mischiefs which threatened the republic,
from the discord of so many rival princes, who were not connected by the
tender sympathy of fraternal affection. The intrigue was conducted with
zeal and secrecy, till a loud and unanimous declaration was procured from
the troops, that they would suffer none except the sons of their lamented
monarch to reign over the Roman empire. The younger Dalmatius, who was
united with his collateral relations by the ties of friendship and
interest, is allowed to have inherited a considerable share of the
abilities of the great Constantine; but, on this occasion, he does not
appear to have concerted any measure for supporting, by arms, the just
claims which himself and his royal brother derived from the liberality of
their uncle. Astonished and overwhelmed by the tide of popular fury, they
seem to have remained, without the power of flight or of resistance, in
the hands of their implacable enemies. Their fate was suspended till the
arrival of Constantius, the second, and perhaps the most favored, of the
sons of Constantine.
The voice of the dying emperor had recommended the care of his funeral to
the piety of Constantius; and that prince, by the vicinity of his eastern
station, could easily prevent the diligence of his brothers, who resided
in their distant government of Italy and Gaul. As soon as he had taken
possession of the palace of Constantinople, his first care was to remove
the apprehensions of his kinsmen, by a solemn oath which he pledged for
their security. His next employment was to find some specious pretence
which might release his conscience from the obligation of an imprudent
promise. The arts of fraud were made subservient to the designs of
cruelty; and a manifest forgery was attested by a person of the most
sacred character. From the hands of the Bishop of Nicomedia, Constantius
received a fatal scroll, affirmed to be the genuine testament of his
father; in which the emperor expressed his suspicions that he had been
poisoned by his brothers; and conjured his sons to revenge his death, and
to consult their own safety, by the punishment of the guilty. Whatever
reasons might have been alleged by these unfortunate princes to defend
their life and honor against so incredible an accusation, they were
silenced by the furious clamors of the soldiers, who declared themselves,
at once, their enemies, their judges, and their executioners. The spirit,
and even the forms of legal proceedings were repeatedly violated in a
promiscuous massacre; which involved the two uncles of Constantius, seven
of his cousins, of whom Dalmatius and Hannibalianus were the most
illustrious, the Patrician Optatus, who had married a sister of the late
emperor, and the Præfect Ablavius, whose power and riches had
inspired him with some hopes of obtaining the purple. If it were necessary
to aggravate the horrors of this bloody scene, we might add, that
Constantius himself had espoused the daughter of his uncle Julius, and
that he had bestowed his sister in marriage on his cousin Hannibalianus.
These alliances, which the policy of Constantine, regardless of the public
prejudice, had formed between the several branches of the Imperial house,
served only to convince mankind, that these princes were as cold to the
endearments of conjugal affection, as they were insensible to the ties of
consanguinity, and the moving entreaties of youth and innocence. Of so
numerous a family, Gallus and Julian alone, the two youngest children of
Julius Constantius, were saved from the hands of the assassins, till their
rage, satiated with slaughter, had in some measure subsided. The emperor
Constantius, who, in the absence of his brothers, was the most obnoxious
to guilt and reproach, discovered, on some future occasions, a faint and
transient remorse for those cruelties which the perfidious counsels of his
ministers, and the irresistible violence of the troops, had extorted from
his unexperienced youth.
The massacre of the Flavian race was succeeded by a new division of the
provinces; which was ratified in a personal interview of the three
brothers. Constantine, the eldest of the Cæsars, obtained, with a
certain preeminence of rank, the possession of the new capital, which bore
his own name and that of his father. Thrace, and the countries of the
East, were allotted for the patrimony of Constantius; and Constans was
acknowledged as the lawful sovereign of Italy, Africa, and the Western
Illyricum. The armies submitted to their hereditary right; and they
condescended, after some delay, to accept from the Roman senate the title
of Augustus. When they first assumed the reins of government, the eldest
of these princes was twenty-one, the second twenty, and the third only
seventeen, years of age.
While the martial nations of Europe followed the standards of his
brothers, Constantius, at the head of the effeminate troops of Asia, was
left to sustain the weight of the Persian war. At the decease of
Constantine, the throne of the East was filled by Sapor, son of Hormouz,
or Hormisdas, and grandson of Narses, who, after the victory of Galerius,
had humbly confessed the superiority of the Roman power. Although Sapor
was in the thirtieth year of his long reign, he was still in the vigor of
youth, as the date of his accession, by a very strange fatality, had
preceded that of his birth. The wife of Hormouz remained pregnant at the
time of her husband's death; and the uncertainty of the sex, as well as of
the event, excited the ambitious hopes of the princes of the house of
Sassan. The apprehensions of civil war were at length removed, by the
positive assurance of the Magi, that the widow of Hormouz had conceived,
and would safely produce a son. Obedient to the voice of superstition, the
Persians prepared, without delay, the ceremony of his coronation. A royal
bed, on which the queen lay in state, was exhibited in the midst of the
palace; the diadem was placed on the spot, which might be supposed to
conceal the future heir of Artaxerxes, and the prostrate satraps adored
the majesty of their invisible and insensible sovereign. If any credit can
be given to this marvellous tale, which seems, however, to be countenanced
by the manners of the people, and by the extraordinary duration of his
reign, we must admire not only the fortune, but the genius, of Sapor. In
the soft, sequestered education of a Persian harem, the royal youth could
discover the importance of exercising the vigor of his mind and body; and,
by his personal merit, deserved a throne, on which he had been seated,
while he was yet unconscious of the duties and temptations of absolute
power. His minority was exposed to the almost inevitable calamities of
domestic discord; his capital was surprised and plundered by Thair, a
powerful king of Yemen, or Arabia; and the majesty of the royal family was
degraded by the captivity of a princess, the sister of the deceased king.
But as soon as Sapor attained the age of manhood, the presumptuous Thair,
his nation, and his country, fell beneath the first effort of the young
warrior; who used his victory with so judicious a mixture of rigor and
clemency, that he obtained from the fears and gratitude of the Arabs the
title of Dhoulacnaf, or protector of the nation.
The ambition of the Persian, to whom his enemies ascribe the virtues of a
soldier and a statesman, was animated by the desire of revenging the
disgrace of his fathers, and of wresting from the hands of the Romans the
five provinces beyond the Tigris. The military fame of Constantine, and
the real or apparent strength of his government, suspended the attack; and
while the hostile conduct of Sapor provoked the resentment, his artful
negotiations amused the patience of the Imperial court. The death of
Constantine was the signal of war, and the actual condition of the Syrian
and Armenian frontier seemed to encourage the Persians by the prospect of
a rich spoil and an easy conquest. The example of the massacres of the
palace diffused a spirit of licentiousness and sedition among the troops
of the East, who were no longer restrained by their habits of obedience to
a veteran commander. By the prudence of Constantius, who, from the
interview with his brothers in Pannonia, immediately hastened to the banks
of the Euphrates, the legions were gradually restored to a sense of duty
and discipline; but the season of anarchy had permitted Sapor to form the
siege of Nisibis, and to occupy several of the most important fortresses
of Mesopotamia. In Armenia, the renowned Tiridates had long enjoyed the
peace and glory which he deserved by his valor and fidelity to the cause
of Rome. The firm alliance which he maintained with Constantine was
productive of spiritual as well as of temporal benefits; by the conversion
of Tiridates, the character of a saint was applied to that of a hero, the
Christian faith was preached and established from the Euphrates to the
shores of the Caspian, and Armenia was attached to the empire by the
double ties of policy and religion. But as many of the Armenian nobles
still refused to abandon the plurality of their gods and of their wives,
the public tranquillity was disturbed by a discontented faction, which
insulted the feeble age of their sovereign, and impatiently expected the
hour of his death. He died at length after a reign of fifty-six years, and
the fortune of the Armenian monarchy expired with Tiridates. His lawful
heir was driven into exile, the Christian priests were either murdered or
expelled from their churches, the barbarous tribes of Albania were
solicited to descend from their mountains; and two of the most powerful
governors, usurping the ensigns or the powers of royalty, implored the
assistance of Sapor, and opened the gates of their cities to the Persian
garrisons. The Christian party, under the guidance of the Archbishop of
Artaxata, the immediate successor of St. Gregory the Illuminator, had
recourse to the piety of Constantius. After the troubles had continued
about three years, Antiochus, one of the officers of the household,
executed with success the Imperial commission of restoring Chosroes, * the
son of Tiridates, to the throne of his fathers, of distributing honors and
rewards among the faithful servants of the house of Arsaces, and of
proclaiming a general amnesty, which was accepted by the greater part of
the rebellious satraps. But the Romans derived more honor than advantage
from this revolution. Chosroes was a prince of a puny stature and a
pusillanimous spirit. Unequal to the fatigues of war, averse to the
society of mankind, he withdrew from his capital to a retired palace,
which he built on the banks of the River Eleutherus, and in the centre of
a shady grove; where he consumed his vacant hours in the rural sports of
hunting and hawking. To secure this inglorious ease, he submitted to the
conditions of peace which Sapor condescended to impose; the payment of an
annual tribute, and the restitution of the fertile province of Atropatene,
which the courage of Tiridates, and the victorious arms of Galerius, had
annexed to the Armenian monarchy.
During the long period of the reign of Constantius, the provinces of the
East were afflicted by the calamities of the Persian war. The irregular
incursions of the light troops alternately spread terror and devastation
beyond the Tigris and beyond the Euphrates, from the gates of Ctesiphon to
those of Antioch; and this active service was performed by the Arabs of
the desert, who were divided in their interest and affections; some of
their independent chiefs being enlisted in the party of Sapor, whilst
others had engaged their doubtful fidelity to the emperor. The more grave
and important operations of the war were conducted with equal vigor; and
the armies of Rome and Persia encountered each other in nine bloody
fields, in two of which Constantius himself commanded in person. The event
of the day was most commonly adverse to the Romans, but in the battle of
Singara, heir imprudent valor had almost achieved a signal and decisive
victory. The stationary troops of Singara * retired on the approach of
Sapor, who passed the Tigris over three bridges, and occupied near the
village of Hilleh an advantageous camp, which, by the labor of his
numerous pioneers, he surrounded in one day with a deep ditch and a lofty
rampart. His formidable host, when it was drawn out in order of battle,
covered the banks of the river, the adjacent heights, and the whole extent
of a plain of above twelve miles, which separated the two armies. Both
were alike impatient to engage; but the Barbarians, after a slight
resistance, fled in disorder; unable to resist, or desirous to weary, the
strength of the heavy legions, who, fainting with heat and thirst, pursued
them across the plain, and cut in pieces a line of cavalry, clothed in
complete armor, which had been posted before the gates of the camp to
protect their retreat. Constantius, who was hurried along in the pursuit,
attempted, without effect, to restrain the ardor of his troops, by
representing to them the dangers of the approaching night, and the
certainty of completing their success with the return of day. As they
depended much more on their own valor than on the experience or the
abilities of their chief, they silenced by their clamors his timid
remonstrances; and rushing with fury to the charge, filled up the ditch,
broke down the rampart, and dispersed themselves through the tents to
recruit their exhausted strength, and to enjoy the rich harvest of their
labors. But the prudent Sapor had watched the moment of victory. His army,
of which the greater part, securely posted on the heights, had been
spectators of the action, advanced in silence, and under the shadow of the
night; and his Persian archers, guided by the illumination of the camp,
poured a shower of arrows on a disarmed and licentious crowd. The
sincerity of history declares, that the Romans were vanquished with a
dreadful slaughter, and that the flying remnant of the legions was exposed
to the most intolerable hardships. Even the tenderness of panegyric,
confessing that the glory of the emperor was sullied by the disobedience
of his soldiers, chooses to draw a veil over the circumstances of this
melancholy retreat. Yet one of those venal orators, so jealous of the fame
of Constantius, relates, with amazing coolness, an act of such incredible
cruelty, as, in the judgment of posterity, must imprint a far deeper stain
on the honor of the Imperial name. The son of Sapor, the heir of his
crown, had been made a captive in the Persian camp. The unhappy youth, who
might have excited the compassion of the most savage enemy, was scourged,
tortured, and publicly executed by the inhuman Romans.
Whatever advantages might attend the arms of Sapor in the field, though
nine repeated victories diffused among the nations the fame of his valor
and conduct, he could not hope to succeed in the execution of his designs,
while the fortified towns of Mesopotamia, and, above all, the strong and
ancient city of Nisibis, remained in the possession of the Romans. In the
space of twelve years, Nisibis, which, since the time of Lucullus, had
been deservedly esteemed the bulwark of the East, sustained three
memorable sieges against the power of Sapor; and the disappointed monarch,
after urging his attacks above sixty, eighty, and a hundred days, was
thrice repulsed with loss and ignominy. This large and populous city was
situate about two days' journey from the Tigris, in the midst of a
pleasant and fertile plain at the foot of Mount Masius. A treble enclosure
of brick walls was defended by a deep ditch; and the intrepid resistance
of Count Lucilianus, and his garrison, was seconded by the desperate
courage of the people. The citizens of Nisibis were animated by the
exhortations of their bishop, inured to arms by the presence of danger,
and convinced of the intentions of Sapor to plant a Persian colony in
their room, and to lead them away into distant and barbarous captivity.
The event of the two former sieges elated their confidence, and
exasperated the haughty spirit of the Great King, who advanced a third
time towards Nisibis, at the head of the united forces of Persia and
India. The ordinary machines, invented to batter or undermine the walls,
were rendered ineffectual by the superior skill of the Romans; and many
days had vainly elapsed, when Sapor embraced a resolution worthy of an
eastern monarch, who believed that the elements themselves were subject to
his power. At the stated season of the melting of the snows in Armenia,
the River Mygdonius, which divides the plain and the city of Nisibis,
forms, like the Nile, an inundation over the adjacent country. By the
labor of the Persians, the course of the river was stopped below the town,
and the waters were confined on every side by solid mounds of earth. On
this artificial lake, a fleet of armed vessels filled with soldiers, and
with engines which discharged stones of five hundred pounds weight,
advanced in order of battle, and engaged, almost upon a level, the troops
which defended the ramparts. *The irresistible force of the waters was
alternately fatal to the contending parties, till at length a portion of
the walls, unable to sustain the accumulated pressure, gave way at once,
and exposed an ample breach of one hundred and fifty feet. The Persians
were instantly driven to the assault, and the fate of Nisibis depended on
the event of the day. The heavy-armed cavalry, who led the van of a deep
column, were embarrassed in the mud, and great numbers were drowned in the
unseen holes which had been filled by the rushing waters. The elephants,
made furious by their wounds, increased the disorder, and trampled down
thousands of the Persian archers. The Great King, who, from an exalted
throne, beheld the misfortunes of his arms, sounded, with reluctant
indignation, the signal of the retreat, and suspended for some hours the
prosecution of the attack. But the vigilant citizens improved the
opportunity of the night; and the return of day discovered a new wall of
six feet in height, rising every moment to fill up the interval of the
breach. Notwithstanding the disappointment of his hopes, and the loss of
more than twenty thousand men, Sapor still pressed the reduction of
Nisibis, with an obstinate firmness, which could have yielded only to the
necessity of defending the eastern provinces of Persia against a
formidable invasion of the Massagetæ. Alarmed by this intelligence,
he hastily relinquished the siege, and marched with rapid diligence from
the banks of the Tigris to those of the Oxus. The danger and difficulties
of the Scythian war engaged him soon afterwards to conclude, or at least
to observe, a truce with the Roman emperor, which was equally grateful to
both princes; as Constantius himself, after the death of his two brothers,
was involved, by the revolutions of the West, in a civil contest, which
required and seemed to exceed the most vigorous exertion of his undivided
strength.
After the partition of the empire, three years had scarcely elapsed before
the sons of Constantine seemed impatient to convince mankind that they
were incapable of contenting themselves with the dominions which they were
unqualified to govern. The eldest of those princes soon complained, that
he was defrauded of his just proportion of the spoils of their murdered
kinsmen; and though he might yield to the superior guilt and merit of
Constantius, he exacted from Constans the cession of the African
provinces, as an equivalent for the rich countries of Macedonia and
Greece, which his brother had acquired by the death of Dalmatius. The want
of sincerity, which Constantine experienced in a tedious and fruitless
negotiation, exasperated the fierceness of his temper; and he eagerly
listened to those favorites, who suggested to him that his honor, as well
as his interest, was concerned in the prosecution of the quarrel. At the
head of a tumultuary band, suited for rapine rather than for conquest, he
suddenly broke onto the dominions of Constans, by the way of the Julian
Alps, and the country round Aquileia felt the first effects of his
resentment. The measures of Constans, who then resided in Dacia, were
directed with more prudence and ability. On the news of his brother's
invasion, he detached a select and disciplined body of his Illyrian
troops, proposing to follow them in person, with the remainder of his
forces. But the conduct of his lieutenants soon terminated the unnatural
contest. By the artful appearances of flight, Constantine was betrayed
into an ambuscade, which had been concealed in a wood, where the rash
youth, with a few attendants, was surprised, surrounded, and slain. His
body, after it had been found in the obscure stream of the Alsa, obtained
the honors of an Imperial sepulchre; but his provinces transferred their
allegiance to the conqueror, who, refusing to admit his elder brother
Constantius to any share in these new acquisitions, maintained the
undisputed possession of more than two thirds of the Roman empire.
The fate of Constans himself was delayed about ten years longer, and the
revenge of his brother's death was reserved for the more ignoble hand of a
domestic traitor. The pernicious tendency of the system introduced by
Constantine was displayed in the feeble administration of his sons; who,
by their vices and weakness, soon lost the esteem and affections of their
people. The pride assumed by Constans, from the unmerited success of his
arms, was rendered more contemptible by his want of abilities and
application. His fond partiality towards some German captives,
distinguished only by the charms of youth, was an object of scandal to the
people; and Magnentius, an ambitious soldier, who was himself of Barbarian
extraction, was encouraged by the public discontent to assert the honor of
the Roman name. The chosen bands of Jovians and Herculians, who
acknowledged Magnentius as their leader, maintained the most respectable
and important station in the Imperial camp. The friendship of Marcellinus,
count of the sacred largesses, supplied with a liberal hand the means of
seduction. The soldiers were convinced by the most specious arguments,
that the republic summoned them to break the bonds of hereditary
servitude; and, by the choice of an active and vigilant prince, to reward
the same virtues which had raised the ancestors of the degenerate Constans
from a private condition to the throne of the world. As soon as the
conspiracy was ripe for execution, Marcellinus, under the pretence of
celebrating his son's birthday, gave a splendid entertainment to the
illustrious and honorable
persons of the court of Gaul, which then resided in the city of Autun. The
intemperance of the feast was artfully protracted till a very late hour of
the night; and the unsuspecting guests were tempted to indulge themselves
in a dangerous and guilty freedom of conversation. On a sudden the doors
were thrown open, and Magnentius, who had retired for a few moments,
returned into the apartment, invested with the diadem and purple. The
conspirators instantly saluted him with the titles of Augustus and
Emperor. The surprise, the terror, the intoxication, the ambitious hopes,
and the mutual ignorance of the rest of the assembly, prompted them to
join their voices to the general acclamation. The guards hastened to take
the oath of fidelity; the gates of the town were shut; and before the dawn
of day, Magnentius became master of the troops and treasure of the palace
and city of Autun. By his secrecy and diligence he entertained some hopes
of surprising the person of Constans, who was pursuing in the adjacent
forest his favorite amusement of hunting, or perhaps some pleasures of a
more private and criminal nature. The rapid progress of fame allowed him,
however, an instant for flight, though the desertion of his soldiers and
subjects deprived him of the power of resistance. Before he could reach a
seaport in Spain, where he intended to embark, he was overtaken near
Helena, at the foot of the Pyrenees, by a party of light cavalry, whose
chief, regardless of the sanctity of a temple, executed his commission by
the murder of the son of Constantine.
As soon as the death of Constans had decided this easy but important
revolution, the example of the court of Autun was imitated by the
provinces of the West. The authority of Magnentius was acknowledged
through the whole extent of the two great præfectures of Gaul and
Italy; and the usurper prepared, by every act of oppression, to collect a
treasure, which might discharge the obligation of an immense donative, and
supply the expenses of a civil war. The martial countries of Illyricum,
from the Danube to the extremity of Greece, had long obeyed the government
of Vetranio, an aged general, beloved for the simplicity of his manners,
and who had acquired some reputation by his experience and services in
war. Attached by habit, by duty, and by gratitude, to the house of
Constantine, he immediately gave the strongest assurances to the only
surviving son of his late master, that he would expose, with unshaken
fidelity, his person and his troops, to inflict a just revenge on the
traitors of Gaul. But the legions of Vetranio were seduced, rather than
provoked, by the example of rebellion; their leader soon betrayed a want
of firmness, or a want of sincerity; and his ambition derived a specious
pretence from the approbation of the princess Constantina. That cruel and
aspiring woman, who had obtained from the great Constantine, her father,
the rank of Augusta, placed the diadem with her
own hands on the head of the Illyrian general; and seemed to expect from
his victory the accomplishment of those unbounded hopes, of which she had
been disappointed by the death of her husband Hannibalianus. Perhaps it
was without the consent of Constantina, that the new emperor formed a
necessary, though dishonorable, alliance with the usurper of the West,
whose purple was so recently stained with her brother's blood.
The intelligence of these important events, which so deeply affected the
honor and safety of the Imperial house, recalled the arms of Constantius
from the inglorious prosecution of the Persian war. He recommended the
care of the East to his lieutenants, and afterwards to his cousin Gallus,
whom he raised from a prison to a throne; and marched towards Europe, with
a mind agitated by the conflict of hope and fear, of grief and
indignation. On his arrival at Heraclea in Thrace, the emperor gave
audience to the ambassadors of Magnentius and Vetranio. The first author
of the conspiracy Marcellinus, who in some measure had bestowed the purple
on his new master, boldly accepted this dangerous commission; and his
three colleagues were selected from the illustrious personages of the
state and army. These deputies were instructed to soothe the resentment,
and to alarm the fears, of Constantius. They were empowered to offer him
the friendship and alliance of the western princes, to cement their union
by a double marriage; of Constantius with the daughter of Magnentius, and
of Magnentius himself with the ambitious Constantina; and to acknowledge
in the treaty the preeminence of rank, which might justly be claimed by
the emperor of the East. Should pride and mistaken piety urge him to
refuse these equitable conditions, the ambassadors were ordered to
expatiate on the inevitable ruin which must attend his rashness, if he
ventured to provoke the sovereigns of the West to exert their superior
strength; and to employ against him that valor, those abilities, and those
legions, to which the house of Constantine had been indebted for so many
triumphs. Such propositions and such arguments appeared to deserve the
most serious attention; the answer of Constantius was deferred till the
next day; and as he had reflected on the importance of justifying a civil
war in the opinion of the people, he thus addressed his council, who
listened with real or affected credulity: "Last night," said he, "after I
retired to rest, the shade of the great Constantine, embracing the corpse
of my murdered brother, rose before my eyes; his well-known voice awakened
me to revenge, forbade me to despair of the republic, and assured me of
the success and immortal glory which would crown the justice of my arms."
The authority of such a vision, or rather of the prince who alleged it,
silenced every doubt, and excluded all negotiation. The ignominious terms
of peace were rejected with disdain. One of the ambassadors of the tyrant
was dismissed with the haughty answer of Constantius; his colleagues, as
unworthy of the privileges of the law of nations, were put in irons; and
the contending powers prepared to wage an implacable war.
Such was the conduct, and such perhaps was the duty, of the brother of
Constans towards the perfidious usurper of Gaul. The situation and
character of Vetranio admitted of milder measures; and the policy of the
Eastern emperor was directed to disunite his antagonists, and to separate
the forces of Illyricum from the cause of rebellion. It was an easy task
to deceive the frankness and simplicity of Vetranio, who, fluctuating some
time between the opposite views of honor and interest, displayed to the
world the insincerity of his temper, and was insensibly engaged in the
snares of an artful negotiation. Constantius acknowledged him as a
legitimate and equal colleague in the empire, on condition that he would
renounce his disgraceful alliance with Magnentius, and appoint a place of
interview on the frontiers of their respective provinces; where they might
pledge their friendship by mutual vows of fidelity, and regulate by common
consent the future operations of the civil war. In consequence of this
agreement, Vetranio advanced to the city of Sardica, at the head of twenty
thousand horse, and of a more numerous body of infantry; a power so far
superior to the forces of Constantius, that the Illyrian emperor appeared
to command the life and fortunes of his rival, who, depending on the
success of his private negotiations, had seduced the troops, and
undermined the throne, of Vetranio. The chiefs, who had secretly embraced
the party of Constantius, prepared in his favor a public spectacle,
calculated to discover and inflame the passions of the multitude. The
united armies were commanded to assemble in a large plain near the city.
In the centre, according to the rules of ancient discipline, a military
tribunal, or rather scaffold, was erected, from whence the emperors were
accustomed, on solemn and important occasions, to harangue the troops. The
well-ordered ranks of Romans and Barbarians, with drawn swords, or with
erected spears, the squadrons of cavalry, and the cohorts of infantry,
distinguished by the variety of their arms and ensigns, formed an immense
circle round the tribunal; and the attentive silence which they preserved
was sometimes interrupted by loud bursts of clamor or of applause. In the
presence of this formidable assembly, the two emperors were called upon to
explain the situation of public affairs: the precedency of rank was
yielded to the royal birth of Constantius; and though he was indifferently
skilled in the arts of rhetoric, he acquitted himself, under these
difficult circumstances, with firmness, dexterity, and eloquence. The
first part of his oration seemed to be pointed only against the tyrant of
Gaul; but while he tragically lamented the cruel murder of Constans, he
insinuated, that none, except a brother, could claim a right to the
succession of his brother. He displayed, with some complacency, the
glories of his Imperial race; and recalled to the memory of the troops the
valor, the triumphs, the liberality of the great Constantine, to whose
sons they had engaged their allegiance by an oath of fidelity, which the
ingratitude of his most favored servants had tempted them to violate. The
officers, who surrounded the tribunal, and were instructed to act their
part in this extraordinary scene, confessed the irresistible power of
reason and eloquence, by saluting the emperor Constantius as their lawful
sovereign. The contagion of loyalty and repentance was communicated from
rank to rank; till the plain of Sardica resounded with the universal
acclamation of "Away with these upstart usurpers! Long life and victory to
the son of Constantine! Under his banners alone we will fight and
conquer." The shout of thousands, their menacing gestures, the fierce
clashing of their arms, astonished and subdued the courage of Vetranio,
who stood, amidst the defection of his followers, in anxious and silent
suspense. Instead of embracing the last refuge of generous despair, he
tamely submitted to his fate; and taking the diadem from his head, in the
view of both armies fell prostrate at the feet of his conqueror.
Constantius used his victory with prudence and moderation; and raising
from the ground the aged suppliant, whom he affected to style by the
endearing name of Father, he gave him his hand to descend from the throne.
The city of Prusa was assigned for the exile or retirement of the
abdicated monarch, who lived six years in the enjoyment of ease and
affluence. He often expressed his grateful sense of the goodness of
Constantius, and, with a very amiable simplicity, advised his benefactor
to resign the sceptre of the world, and to seek for content (where alone
it could be found) in the peaceful obscurity of a private condition.
The behavior of Constantius on this memorable occasion was celebrated with
some appearance of justice; and his courtiers compared the studied
orations which a Pericles or a Demosthenes addressed to the populace of
Athens, with the victorious eloquence which had persuaded an armed
multitude to desert and depose the object of their partial choice. The
approaching contest with Magnentius was of a more serious and bloody kind.
The tyrant advanced by rapid marches to encounter Constantius, at the head
of a numerous army, composed of Gauls and Spaniards, of Franks and Saxons;
of those provincials who supplied the strength of the legions, and of
those barbarians who were dreaded as the most formidable enemies of the
republic. The fertile plains of the Lower Pannonia, between the Drave, the
Save, and the Danube, presented a spacious theatre; and the operations of
the civil war were protracted during the summer months by the skill or
timidity of the combatants. Constantius had declared his intention of
deciding the quarrel in the fields of Cibalis, a name that would animate
his troops by the remembrance of the victory, which, on the same
auspicious ground, had been obtained by the arms of his father
Constantine. Yet by the impregnable fortifications with which the emperor
encompassed his camp, he appeared to decline, rather than to invite, a
general engagement. It was the object of Magnentius to tempt or to compel
his adversary to relinquish this advantageous position; and he employed,
with that view, the various marches, evolutions, and stratagems, which the
knowledge of the art of war could suggest to an experienced officer. He
carried by assault the important town of Siscia; made an attack on the
city of Sirmium, which lay in the rear of the Imperial camp, attempted to
force a passage over the Save into the eastern provinces of Illyricum; and
cut in pieces a numerous detachment, which he had allured into the narrow
passes of Adarne. During the greater part of the summer, the tyrant of
Gaul showed himself master of the field. The troops of Constantius were
harassed and dispirited; his reputation declined in the eye of the world;
and his pride condescended to solicit a treaty of peace, which would have
resigned to the assassin of Constans the sovereignty of the provinces
beyond the Alps. These offers were enforced by the eloquence of Philip the
Imperial ambassador; and the council as well as the army of Magnentius
were disposed to accept them. But the haughty usurper, careless of the
remonstrances of his friends, gave orders that Philip should be detained
as a captive, or, at least, as a hostage; while he despatched an officer
to reproach Constantius with the weakness of his reign, and to insult him
by the promise of a pardon if he would instantly abdicate the purple.
"That he should confide in the justice of his cause, and the protection of
an avenging Deity," was the only answer which honor permitted the emperor
to return. But he was so sensible of the difficulties of his situation,
that he no longer dared to retaliate the indignity which had been offered
to his representative. The negotiation of Philip was not, however,
ineffectual, since he determined Sylvanus the Frank, a general of merit
and reputation, to desert with a considerable body of cavalry, a few days
before the battle of Mursa.
The city of Mursa, or Essek, celebrated in modern times for a bridge of
boats, five miles in length, over the River Drave, and the adjacent
morasses, has been always considered as a place of importance in the wars
of Hungary. Magnentius, directing his march towards Mursa, set fire to the
gates, and, by a sudden assault, had almost scaled the walls of the town.
The vigilance of the garrison extinguished the flames; the approach of
Constantius left him no time to continue the operations of the siege; and
the emperor soon removed the only obstacle that could embarrass his
motions, by forcing a body of troops which had taken post in an adjoining
amphitheatre. The field of battle round Mursa was a naked and level plain:
on this ground the army of Constantius formed, with the Drave on their
right; while their left, either from the nature of their disposition, or
from the superiority of their cavalry, extended far beyond the right flank
of Magnentius. The troops on both sides remained under arms, in anxious
expectation, during the greatest part of the morning; and the son of
Constantine, after animating his soldiers by an eloquent speech, retired
into a church at some distance from the field of battle, and committed to
his generals the conduct of this decisive day. They deserved his
confidence by the valor and military skill which they exerted. They wisely
began the action upon the left; and advancing their whole wing of cavalry
in an oblique line, they suddenly wheeled it on the right flank of the
enemy, which was unprepared to resist the impetuosity of their charge. But
the Romans of the West soon rallied, by the habits of discipline; and the
Barbarians of Germany supported the renown of their national bravery. The
engagement soon became general; was maintained with various and singular
turns of fortune; and scarcely ended with the darkness of the night. The
signal victory which Constantius obtained is attributed to the arms of his
cavalry. His cuirassiers are described as so many massy statues of steel,
glittering with their scaly armor, and breaking with their ponderous
lances the firm array of the Gallic legions. As soon as the legions gave
way, the lighter and more active squadrons of the second line rode sword
in hand into the intervals, and completed the disorder. In the mean while,
the huge bodies of the Germans were exposed almost naked to the dexterity
of the Oriental archers; and whole troops of those Barbarians were urged
by anguish and despair to precipitate themselves into the broad and rapid
stream of the Drave. The number of the slain was computed at fifty-four
thousand men, and the slaughter of the conquerors was more considerable
than that of the vanquished; a circumstance which proves the obstinacy of
the contest, and justifies the observation of an ancient writer, that the
forces of the empire were consumed in the fatal battle of Mursa, by the
loss of a veteran army, sufficient to defend the frontiers, or to add new
triumphs to the glory of Rome. Notwithstanding the invectives of a servile
orator, there is not the least reason to believe that the tyrant deserted
his own standard in the beginning of the engagement. He seems to have
displayed the virtues of a general and of a soldier till the day was
irrecoverably lost, and his camp in the possession of the enemy.
Magnentius then consulted his safety, and throwing away the Imperial
ornaments, escaped with some difficulty from the pursuit of the light
horse, who incessantly followed his rapid flight from the banks of the
Drave to the foot of the Julian Alps.
The approach of winter supplied the indolence of Constantius with specious
reasons for deferring the prosecution of the war till the ensuing spring.
Magnentius had fixed his residence in the city of Aquileia, and showed a
seeming resolution to dispute the passage of the mountains and morasses
which fortified the confines of the Venetian province. The surprisal of a
castle in the Alps by the secret march of the Imperialists, could scarcely
have determined him to relinquish the possession of Italy, if the
inclinations of the people had supported the cause of their tyrant. But
the memory of the cruelties exercised by his ministers, after the
unsuccessful revolt of Nepotian, had left a deep impression of horror and
resentment on the minds of the Romans. That rash youth, the son of the
princess Eutropia, and the nephew of Constantine, had seen with
indignation the sceptre of the West usurped by a perfidious barbarian.
Arming a desperate troop of slaves and gladiators, he overpowered the
feeble guard of the domestic tranquillity of Rome, received the homage of
the senate, and assuming the title of Augustus, precariously reigned
during a tumult of twenty-eight days. The march of some regular forces put
an end to his ambitious hopes: the rebellion was extinguished in the blood
of Nepotian, of his mother Eutropia, and of his adherents; and the
proscription was extended to all who had contracted a fatal alliance with
the name and family of Constantine. But as soon as Constantius, after the
battle of Mursa, became master of the sea-coast of Dalmatia, a band of
noble exiles, who had ventured to equip a fleet in some harbor of the
Adriatic, sought protection and revenge in his victorious camp. By their
secret intelligence with their countrymen, Rome and the Italian cities
were persuaded to display the banners of Constantius on their walls. The
grateful veterans, enriched by the liberality of the father, signalized
their gratitude and loyalty to the son. The cavalry, the legions, and the
auxiliaries of Italy, renewed their oath of allegiance to Constantius; and
the usurper, alarmed by the general desertion, was compelled, with the
remains of his faithful troops, to retire beyond the Alps into the
provinces of Gaul. The detachments, however, which were ordered either to
press or to intercept the flight of Magnentius, conducted themselves with
the usual imprudence of success; and allowed him, in the plains of Pavia,
an opportunity of turning on his pursuers, and of gratifying his despair
by the carnage of a useless victory.
The pride of Magnentius was reduced, by repeated misfortunes, to sue, and
to sue in vain, for peace. He first despatched a senator, in whose
abilities he confided, and afterwards several bishops, whose holy
character might obtain a more favorable audience, with the offer of
resigning the purple, and the promise of devoting the remainder of his
life to the service of the emperor. But Constantius, though he granted
fair terms of pardon and reconciliation to all who abandoned the standard
of rebellion, avowed his inflexible resolution to inflict a just
punishment on the crimes of an assassin, whom he prepared to overwhelm on
every side by the effort of his victorious arms. An Imperial fleet
acquired the easy possession of Africa and Spain, confirmed the wavering
faith of the Moorish nations, and landed a considerable force, which
passed the Pyrenees, and advanced towards Lyons, the last and fatal
station of Magnentius. The temper of the tyrant, which was never inclined
to clemency, was urged by distress to exercise every act of oppression
which could extort an immediate supply from the cities of Gaul. Their
patience was at length exhausted; and Treves, the seat of Prætorian
government, gave the signal of revolt, by shutting her gates against
Decentius, who had been raised by his brother to the rank either of Cæsar
or of Augustus. From Treves, Decentius was obliged to retire to Sens,
where he was soon surrounded by an army of Germans, whom the pernicious
arts of Constantius had introduced into the civil dissensions of Rome. In
the mean time, the Imperial troops forced the passages of the Cottian
Alps, and in the bloody combat of Mount Seleucus irrevocably fixed the
title of rebels on the party of Magnentius. He was unable to bring another
army into the field; the fidelity of his guards was corrupted; and when he
appeared in public to animate them by his exhortations, he was saluted
with a unanimous shout of "Long live the emperor Constantius!" The tyrant,
who perceived that they were preparing to deserve pardon and rewards by
the sacrifice of the most obnoxious criminal, prevented their design by
falling on his sword; a death more easy and more honorable than he could
hope to obtain from the hands of an enemy, whose revenge would have been
colored with the specious pretence of justice and fraternal piety. The
example of suicide was imitated by Decentius, who strangled himself on the
news of his brother's death. The author of the conspiracy, Marcellinus,
had long since disappeared in the battle of Mursa, and the public
tranquillity was confirmed by the execution of the surviving leaders of a
guilty and unsuccessful faction. A severe inquisition was extended over
all who, either from choice or from compulsion, had been involved in the
cause of rebellion. Paul, surnamed Catena from his superior skill in the
judicial exercise of tyranny, * was sent to explore the latent remains of
the conspiracy in the remote province of Britain. The honest indignation
expressed by Martin, vice-præfect of the island, was interpreted as
an evidence of his own guilt; and the governor was urged to the necessity
of turning against his breast the sword with which he had been provoked to
wound the Imperial minister. The most innocent subjects of the West were
exposed to exile and confiscation, to death and torture; and as the timid
are always cruel, the mind of Constantius was inaccessible to mercy.
Constantius Sole Emperor.—Elevation And Death Of Gallus.— Danger And Elevation Of Julian.—Sarmatian And Persian Wars.— Victories Of Julian In Gaul.
The divided provinces of the empire were again united by the victory of
Constantius; but as that feeble prince was destitute of personal merit,
either in peace or war; as he feared his generals, and distrusted his
ministers; the triumph of his arms served only to establish the reign of
the eunuchs over the Roman world. Those unhappy beings, the ancient
production of Oriental jealousy and despotism, were introduced into Greece
and Rome by the contagion of Asiatic luxury. Their progress was rapid; and
the eunuchs, who, in the time of Augustus, had been abhorred, as the
monstrous retinue of an Egyptian queen, were gradually admitted into the
families of matrons, of senators, and of the emperors themselves.
Restrained by the severe edicts of Domitian and Nerva, cherished by the
pride of Diocletian, reduced to an humble station by the prudence of
Constantine, they multiplied in the palaces of his degenerate sons, and
insensibly acquired the knowledge, and at length the direction, of the
secret councils of Constantius. The aversion and contempt which mankind
had so uniformly entertained for that imperfect species, appears to have
degraded their character, and to have rendered them almost as incapable as
they were supposed to be, of conceiving any generous sentiment, or of
performing any worthy action. But the eunuchs were skilled in the arts of
flattery and intrigue; and they alternately governed the mind of
Constantius by his fears, his indolence, and his vanity. Whilst he viewed
in a deceitful mirror the fair appearance of public prosperity, he
supinely permitted them to intercept the complaints of the injured
provinces, to accumulate immense treasures by the sale of justice and of
honors; to disgrace the most important dignities, by the promotion of
those who had purchased at their hands the powers of oppression, and to
gratify their resentment against the few independent spirits, who
arrogantly refused to solicit the protection of slaves. Of these slaves
the most distinguished was the chamberlain Eusebius, who ruled the monarch
and the palace with such absolute sway, that Constantius, according to the
sarcasm of an impartial historian, possessed some credit with this haughty
favorite. By his artful suggestions, the emperor was persuaded to
subscribe the condemnation of the unfortunate Gallus, and to add a new
crime to the long list of unnatural murders which pollute the honor of the
house of Constantine.
When the two nephews of Constantine, Gallus and Julian, were saved from
the fury of the soldiers, the former was about twelve, and the latter
about six, years of age; and, as the eldest was thought to be of a sickly
constitution, they obtained with the less difficulty a precarious and
dependent life, from the affected pity of Constantius, who was sensible
that the execution of these helpless orphans would have been esteemed, by
all mankind, an act of the most deliberate cruelty. * Different cities of
Ionia and Bithynia were assigned for the places of their exile and
education; but as soon as their growing years excited the jealousy of the
emperor, he judged it more prudent to secure those unhappy youths in the
strong castle of Macellum, near Cæsarea. The treatment which they
experienced during a six years' confinement, was partly such as they could
hope from a careful guardian, and partly such as they might dread from a
suspicious tyrant. Their prison was an ancient palace, the residence of
the kings of Cappadocia; the situation was pleasant, the buildings
stately, the enclosure spacious. They pursued their studies, and practised
their exercises, under the tuition of the most skilful masters; and the
numerous household appointed to attend, or rather to guard, the nephews of
Constantine, was not unworthy of the dignity of their birth. But they
could not disguise to themselves that they were deprived of fortune, of
freedom, and of safety; secluded from the society of all whom they could
trust or esteem, and condemned to pass their melancholy hours in the
company of slaves devoted to the commands of a tyrant who had already
injured them beyond the hope of reconciliation. At length, however, the
emergencies of the state compelled the emperor, or rather his eunuchs, to
invest Gallus, in the twenty-fifth year of his age, with the title of Cæsar,
and to cement this political connection by his marriage with the princess
Constantina. After a formal interview, in which the two princes mutually
engaged their faith never to undertake any thing to the prejudice of each
other, they repaired without delay to their respective stations.
Constantius continued his march towards the West, and Gallus fixed his
residence at Antioch; from whence, with a delegated authority, he
administered the five great dioceses of the eastern præfecture. In
this fortunate change, the new Cæsar was not unmindful of his
brother Julian, who obtained the honors of his rank, the appearances of
liberty, and the restitution of an ample patrimony.
The writers the most indulgent to the memory of Gallus, and even Julian
himself, though he wished to cast a veil over the frailties of his
brother, are obliged to confess that the Cæsar was incapable of
reigning. Transported from a prison to a throne, he possessed neither
genius nor application, nor docility to compensate for the want of
knowledge and experience. A temper naturally morose and violent, instead
of being corrected, was soured by solitude and adversity; the remembrance
of what he had endured disposed him to retaliation rather than to
sympathy; and the ungoverned sallies of his rage were often fatal to those
who approached his person, or were subject to his power. Constantina, his
wife, is described, not as a woman, but as one of the infernal furies
tormented with an insatiate thirst of human blood. Instead of employing
her influence to insinuate the mild counsels of prudence and humanity, she
exasperated the fierce passions of her husband; and as she retained the
vanity, though she had renounced, the gentleness of her sex, a pearl
necklace was esteemed an equivalent price for the murder of an innocent
and virtuous nobleman. The cruelty of Gallus was sometimes displayed in
the undissembled violence of popular or military executions; and was
sometimes disguised by the abuse of law, and the forms of judicial
proceedings. The private houses of Antioch, and the places of public
resort, were besieged by spies and informers; and the Cæsar himself,
concealed in a plebeian habit, very frequently condescended to assume that
odious character. Every apartment of the palace was adorned with the
instruments of death and torture, and a general consternation was diffused
through the capital of Syria. The prince of the East, as if he had been
conscious how much he had to fear, and how little he deserved to reign,
selected for the objects of his resentment the provincials accused of some
imaginary treason, and his own courtiers, whom with more reason he
suspected of incensing, by their secret correspondence, the timid and
suspicious mind of Constantius. But he forgot that he was depriving
himself of his only support, the affection of the people; whilst he
furnished the malice of his enemies with the arms of truth, and afforded
the emperor the fairest pretence of exacting the forfeit of his purple,
and of his life.
As long as the civil war suspended the fate of the Roman world,
Constantius dissembled his knowledge of the weak and cruel administration
to which his choice had subjected the East; and the discovery of some
assassins, secretly despatched to Antioch by the tyrant of Gaul, was
employed to convince the public, that the emperor and the Cæsar were
united by the same interest, and pursued by the same enemies. But when the
victory was decided in favor of Constantius, his dependent colleague
became less useful and less formidable. Every circumstance of his conduct
was severely and suspiciously examined, and it was privately resolved,
either to deprive Gallus of the purple, or at least to remove him from the
indolent luxury of Asia to the hardships and dangers of a German war. The
death of Theophilus, consular of the province of Syria, who in a time of
scarcity had been massacred by the people of Antioch, with the connivance,
and almost at the instigation, of Gallus, was justly resented, not only as
an act of wanton cruelty, but as a dangerous insult on the supreme majesty
of Constantius. Two ministers of illustrious rank, Domitian the Oriental
præfect, and Montius, quæstor of the palace, were empowered by
a special commission * to visit and reform the state of the East. They
were instructed to behave towards Gallus with moderation and respect, and,
by the gentlest arts of persuasion, to engage him to comply with the
invitation of his brother and colleague. The rashness of the præfect
disappointed these prudent measures, and hastened his own ruin, as well as
that of his enemy. On his arrival at Antioch, Domitian passed disdainfully
before the gates of the palace, and alleging a slight pretence of
indisposition, continued several days in sullen retirement, to prepare an
inflammatory memorial, which he transmitted to the Imperial court.
Yielding at length to the pressing solicitations of Gallus, the præfect
condescended to take his seat in council; but his first step was to
signify a concise and haughty mandate, importing that the Cæsar
should immediately repair to Italy, and threatening that he himself would
punish his delay or hesitation, by suspending the usual allowance of his
household. The nephew and daughter of Constantine, who could ill brook the
insolence of a subject, expressed their resentment by instantly delivering
Domitian to the custody of a guard. The quarrel still admitted of some
terms of accommodation. They were rendered impracticable by the imprudent
behavior of Montius, a statesman whose arts and experience were frequently
betrayed by the levity of his disposition. The quæstor reproached
Gallus in a haughty language, that a prince who was scarcely authorized to
remove a municipal magistrate, should presume to imprison a Prætorian
præfect; convoked a meeting of the civil and military officers; and
required them, in the name of their sovereign, to defend the person and
dignity of his representatives. By this rash declaration of war, the
impatient temper of Gallus was provoked to embrace the most desperate
counsels. He ordered his guards to stand to their arms, assembled the
populace of Antioch, and recommended to their zeal the care of his safety
and revenge. His commands were too fatally obeyed. They rudely seized the
præfect and the quæstor, and tying their legs together with
ropes, they dragged them through the streets of the city, inflicted a
thousand insults and a thousand wounds on these unhappy victims, and at
last precipitated their mangled and lifeless bodies into the stream of the
Orontes.
After such a deed, whatever might have been the designs of Gallus, it was
only in a field of battle that he could assert his innocence with any hope
of success. But the mind of that prince was formed of an equal mixture of
violence and weakness. Instead of assuming the title of Augustus, instead
of employing in his defence the troops and treasures of the East, he
suffered himself to be deceived by the affected tranquillity of
Constantius, who, leaving him the vain pageantry of a court, imperceptibly
recalled the veteran legions from the provinces of Asia. But as it still
appeared dangerous to arrest Gallus in his capital, the slow and safer
arts of dissimulation were practised with success. The frequent and
pressing epistles of Constantius were filled with professions of
confidence and friendship; exhorting the Cæsar to discharge the
duties of his high station, to relieve his colleague from a part of the
public cares, and to assist the West by his presence, his counsels, and
his arms. After so many reciprocal injuries, Gallus had reason to fear and
to distrust. But he had neglected the opportunities of flight and of
resistance; he was seduced by the flattering assurances of the tribune
Scudilo, who, under the semblance of a rough soldier, disguised the most
artful insinuation; and he depended on the credit of his wife Constantina,
till the unseasonable death of that princess completed the ruin in which
he had been involved by her impetuous passions.
After a long delay, the reluctant Cæsar set forwards on his journey
to the Imperial court. From Antioch to Hadrianople, he traversed the wide
extent of his dominions with a numerous and stately train; and as he
labored to conceal his apprehensions from the world, and perhaps from
himself, he entertained the people of Constantinople with an exhibition of
the games of the circus. The progress of the journey might, however, have
warned him of the impending danger. In all the principal cities he was met
by ministers of confidence, commissioned to seize the offices of
government, to observe his motions, and to prevent the hasty sallies of
his despair. The persons despatched to secure the provinces which he left
behind, passed him with cold salutations, or affected disdain; and the
troops, whose station lay along the public road, were studiously removed
on his approach, lest they might be tempted to offer their swords for the
service of a civil war. After Gallus had been permitted to repose himself
a few days at Hadrianople, he received a mandate, expressed in the most
haughty and absolute style, that his splendid retinue should halt in that
city, while the Cæsar himself, with only ten post-carriages, should
hasten to the Imperial residence at Milan. In this rapid journey, the
profound respect which was due to the brother and colleague of
Constantius, was insensibly changed into rude familiarity; and Gallus, who
discovered in the countenances of the attendants that they already
considered themselves as his guards, and might soon be employed as his
executioners, began to accuse his fatal rashness, and to recollect, with
terror and remorse, the conduct by which he had provoked his fate. The
dissimulation which had hitherto been preserved, was laid aside at
Petovio, * in Pannonia. He was conducted to a palace in the suburbs, where
the general Barbatio, with a select band of soldiers, who could neither be
moved by pity, nor corrupted by rewards, expected the arrival of his
illustrious victim. In the close of the evening he was arrested,
ignominiously stripped of the ensigns of Cæsar, and hurried away to
Pola, in Istria, a sequestered prison, which had been so recently polluted
with royal blood. The horror which he felt was soon increased by the
appearance of his implacable enemy the eunuch Eusebius, who, with the
assistance of a notary and a tribune, proceeded to interrogate him
concerning the administration of the East. The Cæsar sank under the
weight of shame and guilt, confessed all the criminal actions and all the
treasonable designs with which he was charged; and by imputing them to the
advice of his wife, exasperated the indignation of Constantius, who
reviewed with partial prejudice the minutes of the examination. The
emperor was easily convinced, that his own safety was incompatible with
the life of his cousin: the sentence of death was signed, despatched, and
executed; and the nephew of Constantine, with his hands tied behind his
back, was beheaded in prison like the vilest malefactor. Those who are
inclined to palliate the cruelties of Constantius, assert that he soon
relented, and endeavored to recall the bloody mandate; but that the second
messenger, intrusted with the reprieve, was detained by the eunuchs, who
dreaded the unforgiving temper of Gallus, and were desirous of reuniting
to their empire the wealthy provinces of the
East.
Besides the reigning emperor, Julian alone survived, of all the numerous
posterity of Constantius Chlorus. The misfortune of his royal birth
involved him in the disgrace of Gallus. From his retirement in the happy
country of Ionia, he was conveyed under a strong guard to the court of
Milan; where he languished above seven months, in the continual
apprehension of suffering the same ignominious death, which was daily
inflicted almost before his eyes, on the friends and adherents of his
persecuted family. His looks, his gestures, his silence, were scrutinized
with malignant curiosity, and he was perpetually assaulted by enemies whom
he had never offended, and by arts to which he was a stranger. But in the
school of adversity, Julian insensibly acquired the virtues of firmness
and discretion. He defended his honor, as well as his life, against the
insnaring subtleties of the eunuchs, who endeavored to extort some
declaration of his sentiments; and whilst he cautiously suppressed his
grief and resentment, he nobly disdained to flatter the tyrant, by any
seeming approbation of his brother's murder. Julian most devoutly ascribes
his miraculous deliverance to the protection of the gods, who had exempted
his innocence from the sentence of destruction pronounced by their justice
against the impious house of Constantine. As the most effectual instrument
of their providence, he gratefully acknowledges the steady and generous
friendship of the empress Eusebia, a woman of beauty and merit, who, by
the ascendant which she had gained over the mind of her husband,
counterbalanced, in some measure, the powerful conspiracy of the eunuchs.
By the intercession of his patroness, Julian was admitted into the
Imperial presence: he pleaded his cause with a decent freedom, he was
heard with favor; and, notwithstanding the efforts of his enemies, who
urged the danger of sparing an avenger of the blood of Gallus, the milder
sentiment of Eusebia prevailed in the council. But the effects of a second
interview were dreaded by the eunuchs; and Julian was advised to withdraw
for a while into the neighborhood of Milan, till the emperor thought
proper to assign the city of Athens for the place of his honorable exile.
As he had discovered, from his earliest youth, a propensity, or rather
passion, for the language, the manners, the learning, and the religion of
the Greeks, he obeyed with pleasure an order so agreeable to his wishes.
Far from the tumult of arms, and the treachery of courts, he spent six
months under the groves of the academy, in a free intercourse with the
philosophers of the age, who studied to cultivate the genius, to encourage
the vanity, and to inflame the devotion of their royal pupil. Their labors
were not unsuccessful; and Julian inviolably preserved for Athens that
tender regard which seldom fails to arise in a liberal mind, from the
recollection of the place where it has discovered and exercised its
growing powers. The gentleness and affability of manners, which his temper
suggested and his situation imposed, insensibly engaged the affections of
the strangers, as well as citizens, with whom he conversed. Some of his
fellow-students might perhaps examine his behavior with an eye of
prejudice and aversion; but Julian established, in the schools of Athens,
a general prepossession in favor of his virtues and talents, which was
soon diffused over the Roman world.
Whilst his hours were passed in studious retirement, the empress, resolute
to achieve the generous design which she had undertaken, was not unmindful
of the care of his fortune. The death of the late Cæsar had left
Constantius invested with the sole command, and oppressed by the
accumulated weight, of a mighty empire. Before the wounds of civil discord
could be healed, the provinces of Gaul were overwhelmed by a deluge of
Barbarians. The Sarmatians no longer respected the barrier of the Danube.
The impunity of rapine had increased the boldness and numbers of the wild
Isaurians: those robbers descended from their craggy mountains to ravage
the adjacent country, and had even presumed, though without success, to
besiege the important city of Seleucia, which was defended by a garrison
of three Roman legions. Above all, the Persian monarch, elated by victory,
again threatened the peace of Asia, and the presence of the emperor was
indispensably required, both in the West and in the East. For the first
time, Constantius sincerely acknowledged, that his single strength was
unequal to such an extent of care and of dominion. Insensible to the voice
of flattery, which assured him that his all-powerful virtue, and celestial
fortune, would still continue to triumph over every obstacle, he listened
with complacency to the advice of Eusebia, which gratified his indolence,
without offending his suspicious pride. As she perceived that the
remembrance of Gallus dwelt on the emperor's mind, she artfully turned his
attention to the opposite characters of the two brothers, which from their
infancy had been compared to those of Domitian and of Titus. She
accustomed her husband to consider Julian as a youth of a mild,
unambitious disposition, whose allegiance and gratitude might be secured
by the gift of the purple, and who was qualified to fill with honor a
subordinate station, without aspiring to dispute the commands, or to shade
the glories, of his sovereign and benefactor. After an obstinate, though
secret struggle, the opposition of the favorite eunuchs submitted to the
ascendency of the empress; and it was resolved that Julian, after
celebrating his nuptials with Helena, sister of Constantius, should be
appointed, with the title of Cæsar, to reign over the countries
beyond the Alps.
Although the order which recalled him to court was probably accompanied by
some intimation of his approaching greatness, he appeals to the people of
Athens to witness his tears of undissembled sorrow, when he was
reluctantly torn away from his beloved retirement. He trembled for his
life, for his fame, and even for his virtue; and his sole confidence was
derived from the persuasion, that Minerva inspired all his actions, and
that he was protected by an invisible guard of angels, whom for that
purpose she had borrowed from the Sun and Moon. He approached, with
horror, the palace of Milan; nor could the ingenuous youth conceal his
indignation, when he found himself accosted with false and servile respect
by the assassins of his family. Eusebia, rejoicing in the success of her
benevolent schemes, embraced him with the tenderness of a sister; and
endeavored, by the most soothing caresses, to dispel his terrors, and
reconcile him to his fortune. But the ceremony of shaving his beard, and
his awkward demeanor, when he first exchanged the cloak of a Greek
philosopher for the military habit of a Roman prince, amused, during a few
days, the levity of the Imperial court.
The emperors of the age of Constantine no longer deigned to consult with
the senate in the choice of a colleague; but they were anxious that their
nomination should be ratified by the consent of the army. On this solemn
occasion, the guards, with the other troops whose stations were in the
neighborhood of Milan, appeared under arms; and Constantius ascended his
lofty tribunal, holding by the hand his cousin Julian, who entered the
same day into the twenty-fifth year of his age. In a studied speech,
conceived and delivered with dignity, the emperor represented the various
dangers which threatened the prosperity of the republic, the necessity of
naming a Cæsar for the administration of the West, and his own
intention, if it was agreeable to their wishes, of rewarding with the
honors of the purple the promising virtues of the nephew of Constantine.
The approbation of the soldiers was testified by a respectful murmur; they
gazed on the manly countenance of Julian, and observed with pleasure, that
the fire which sparkled in his eyes was tempered by a modest blush, on
being thus exposed, for the first time, to the public view of mankind. As
soon as the ceremony of his investiture had been performed, Constantius
addressed him with the tone of authority which his superior age and
station permitted him to assume; and exhorting the new Cæsar to
deserve, by heroic deeds, that sacred and immortal name, the emperor gave
his colleague the strongest assurances of a friendship which should never
be impaired by time, nor interrupted by their separation into the most
distant climes. As soon as the speech was ended, the troops, as a token of
applause, clashed their shields against their knees; while the officers
who surrounded the tribunal expressed, with decent reserve, their sense of
the merits of the representative of Constantius.
The two princes returned to the palace in the same chariot; and during the
slow procession, Julian repeated to himself a verse of his favorite Homer,
which he might equally apply to his fortune and to his fears. The
four-and-twenty days which the Cæsar spent at Milan after his
investiture, and the first months of his Gallic reign, were devoted to a
splendid but severe captivity; nor could the acquisition of honor
compensate for the loss of freedom. His steps were watched, his
correspondence was intercepted; and he was obliged, by prudence, to
decline the visits of his most intimate friends. Of his former domestics,
four only were permitted to attend him; two pages, his physician, and his
librarian; the last of whom was employed in the care of a valuable
collection of books, the gift of the empress, who studied the inclinations
as well as the interest of her friend. In the room of these faithful
servants, a household was formed, such indeed as became the dignity of a Cæsar;
but it was filled with a crowd of slaves, destitute, and perhaps
incapable, of any attachment for their new master, to whom, for the most
part, they were either unknown or suspected. His want of experience might
require the assistance of a wise council; but the minute instructions
which regulated the service of his table, and the distribution of his
hours, were adapted to a youth still under the discipline of his
preceptors, rather than to the situation of a prince intrusted with the
conduct of an important war. If he aspired to deserve the esteem of his
subjects, he was checked by the fear of displeasing his sovereign; and
even the fruits of his marriage-bed were blasted by the jealous artifices
of Eusebia herself, who, on this occasion alone, seems to have been
unmindful of the tenderness of her sex, and the generosity of her
character. The memory of his father and of his brothers reminded Julian of
his own danger, and his apprehensions were increased by the recent and
unworthy fate of Sylvanus. In the summer which preceded his own elevation,
that general had been chosen to deliver Gaul from the tyranny of the
Barbarians; but Sylvanus soon discovered that he had left his most
dangerous enemies in the Imperial court. A dexterous informer,
countenanced by several of the principal ministers, procured from him some
recommendatory letters; and erasing the whole of the contents, except the
signature, filled up the vacant parchment with matters of high and
treasonable import. By the industry and courage of his friends, the fraud
was however detected, and in a great council of the civil and military
officers, held in the presence of the emperor himself, the innocence of
Sylvanus was publicly acknowledged. But the discovery came too late; the
report of the calumny, and the hasty seizure of his estate, had already
provoked the indignant chief to the rebellion of which he was so unjustly
accused. He assumed the purple at his head-quarters of Cologne, and his
active powers appeared to menace Italy with an invasion, and Milan with a
siege. In this emergency, Ursicinus, a general of equal rank, regained, by
an act of treachery, the favor which he had lost by his eminent services
in the East. Exasperated, as he might speciously allege, by the injuries
of a similar nature, he hastened with a few followers to join the
standard, and to betray the confidence, of his too credulous friend. After
a reign of only twenty-eight days, Sylvanus was assassinated: the soldiers
who, without any criminal intention, had blindly followed the example of
their leader, immediately returned to their allegiance; and the flatterers
of Constantius celebrated the wisdom and felicity of the monarch who had
extinguished a civil war without the hazard of a battle.
The protection of the Rhætian frontier, and the persecution of the
Catholic church, detained Constantius in Italy above eighteen months after
the departure of Julian. Before the emperor returned into the East, he
indulged his pride and curiosity in a visit to the ancient capital. He
proceeded from Milan to Rome along the Æmilian and Flaminian ways,
and as soon as he approached within forty miles of the city, the march of
a prince who had never vanquished a foreign enemy, assumed the appearance
of a triumphal procession. His splendid train was composed of all the
ministers of luxury; but in a time of profound peace, he was encompassed
by the glittering arms of the numerous squadrons of his guards and
cuirassiers. Their streaming banners of silk, embossed with gold, and
shaped in the form of dragons, waved round the person of the emperor.
Constantius sat alone in a lofty car, resplendent with gold and precious
gems; and, except when he bowed his head to pass under the gates of the
cities, he affected a stately demeanor of inflexible, and, as it might
seem, of insensible gravity. The severe discipline of the Persian youth
had been introduced by the eunuchs into the Imperial palace; and such were
the habits of patience which they had inculcated, that during a slow and
sultry march, he was never seen to move his hand towards his face, or to
turn his eyes either to the right or to the left. He was received by the
magistrates and senate of Rome; and the emperor surveyed, with attention,
the civil honors of the republic, and the consular images of the noble
families. The streets were lined with an innumerable multitude. Their
repeated acclamations expressed their joy at beholding, after an absence
of thirty-two years, the sacred person of their sovereign, and Constantius
himself expressed, with some pleasantry, he affected surprise that the
human race should thus suddenly be collected on the same spot. The son of
Constantine was lodged in the ancient palace of Augustus: he presided in
the senate, harangued the people from the tribunal which Cicero had so
often ascended, assisted with unusual courtesy at the games of the Circus,
and accepted the crowns of gold, as well as the Panegyrics which had been
prepared for the ceremony by the deputies of the principal cities. His
short visit of thirty days was employed in viewing the monuments of art
and power which were scattered over the seven hills and the interjacent
valleys. He admired the awful majesty of the Capitol, the vast extent of
the baths of Caracalla and Diocletian, the severe simplicity of the
Pantheon, the massy greatness of the amphitheatre of Titus, the elegant
architecture of the theatre of Pompey and the Temple of Peace, and, above
all, the stately structure of the Forum and column of Trajan;
acknowledging that the voice of fame, so prone to invent and to magnify,
had made an inadequate report of the metropolis of the world. The
traveller, who has contemplated the ruins of ancient Rome, may conceive
some imperfect idea of the sentiments which they must have inspired when
they reared their heads in the splendor of unsullied beauty.
[See The Pantheon: The severe simplicity of the Pantheon]
The satisfaction which Constantius had received from this journey excited
him to the generous emulation of bestowing on the Romans some memorial of
his own gratitude and munificence. His first idea was to imitate the
equestrian and colossal statue which he had seen in the Forum of Trajan;
but when he had maturely weighed the difficulties of the execution, he
chose rather to embellish the capital by the gift of an Egyptian obelisk.
In a remote but polished age, which seems to have preceded the invention
of alphabetical writing, a great number of these obelisks had been
erected, in the cities of Thebes and Heliopolis, by the ancient sovereigns
of Egypt, in a just confidence that the simplicity of their form, and the
hardness of their substance, would resist the injuries of time and
violence. Several of these extraordinary columns had been transported to
Rome by Augustus and his successors, as the most durable monuments of
their power and victory; but there remained one obelisk, which, from its
size or sanctity, escaped for a long time the rapacious vanity of the
conquerors. It was designed by Constantine to adorn his new city; and,
after being removed by his order from the pedestal where it stood before
the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis, was floated down the Nile to
Alexandria. The death of Constantine suspended the execution of his
purpose, and this obelisk was destined by his son to the ancient capital
of the empire. A vessel of uncommon strength and capaciousness was
provided to convey this enormous weight of granite, at least a hundred and
fifteen feet in length, from the banks of the Nile to those of the Tyber.
The obelisk of Constantius was landed about three miles from the city, and
elevated, by the efforts of art and labor, in the great Circus of Rome.
The departure of Constantius from Rome was hastened by the alarming
intelligence of the distress and danger of the Illyrian provinces. The
distractions of civil war, and the irreparable loss which the Roman
legions had sustained in the battle of Mursa, exposed those countries,
almost without defence, to the light cavalry of the Barbarians; and
particularly to the inroads of the Quadi, a fierce and powerful nation,
who seem to have exchanged the institutions of Germany for the arms and
military arts of their Sarmatian allies. The garrisons of the frontiers
were insufficient to check their progress; and the indolent monarch was at
length compelled to assemble, from the extremities of his dominions, the
flower of the Palatine troops, to take the field in person, and to employ
a whole campaign, with the preceding autumn and the ensuing spring, in the
serious prosecution of the war. The emperor passed the Danube on a bridge
of boats, cut in pieces all that encountered his march, penetrated into
the heart of the country of the Quadi, and severely retaliated the
calamities which they had inflicted on the Roman province. The dismayed
Barbarians were soon reduced to sue for peace: they offered the
restitution of his captive subjects as an atonement for the past, and the
noblest hostages as a pledge of their future conduct. The generous
courtesy which was shown to the first among their chieftains who implored
the clemency of Constantius, encouraged the more timid, or the more
obstinate, to imitate their example; and the Imperial camp was crowded
with the princes and ambassadors of the most distant tribes, who occupied
the plains of the Lesser Poland, and who might have deemed themselves
secure behind the lofty ridge of the Carpathian Mountains. While
Constantius gave laws to the Barbarians beyond the Danube, he
distinguished, with specious compassion, the Sarmatian exiles, who had
been expelled from their native country by the rebellion of their slaves,
and who formed a very considerable accession to the power of the Quadi.
The emperor, embracing a generous but artful system of policy, released
the Sarmatians from the bands of this humiliating dependence, and restored
them, by a separate treaty, to the dignity of a nation united under the
government of a king, the friend and ally of the republic. He declared his
resolution of asserting the justice of their cause, and of securing the
peace of the provinces by the extirpation, or at least the banishment, of
the Limigantes, whose manners were still infected with the vices of their
servile origin. The execution of this design was attended with more
difficulty than glory. The territory of the Limigantes was protected
against the Romans by the Danube, against the hostile Barbarians by the
Teyss. The marshy lands which lay between those rivers, and were often
covered by their inundations, formed an intricate wilderness, pervious
only to the inhabitants, who were acquainted with its secret paths and
inaccessible fortresses. On the approach of Constantius, the Limigantes
tried the efficacy of prayers, of fraud, and of arms; but he sternly
rejected their supplications, defeated their rude stratagems, and repelled
with skill and firmness the efforts of their irregular valor. One of their
most warlike tribes, established in a small island towards the conflux of
the Teyss and the Danube, consented to pass the river with the intention
of surprising the emperor during the security of an amicable conference.
They soon became the victims of the perfidy which they meditated.
Encompassed on every side, trampled down by the cavalry, slaughtered by
the swords of the legions, they disdained to ask for mercy; and with an
undaunted countenance, still grasped their weapons in the agonies of
death. After this victory, a considerable body of Romans was landed on the
opposite banks of the Danube; the Taifalæ, a Gothic tribe engaged in
the service of the empire, invaded the Limigantes on the side of the
Teyss; and their former masters, the free Sarmatians, animated by hope and
revenge, penetrated through the hilly country, into the heart of their
ancient possessions. A general conflagration revealed the huts of the
Barbarians, which were seated in the depth of the wilderness; and the
soldier fought with confidence on marshy ground, which it was dangerous
for him to tread. In this extremity, the bravest of the Limigantes were
resolved to die in arms, rather than to yield: but the milder sentiment,
enforced by the authority of their elders, at length prevailed; and the
suppliant crowd, followed by their wives and children, repaired to the
Imperial camp, to learn their fate from the mouth of the conqueror. After
celebrating his own clemency, which was still inclined to pardon their
repeated crimes, and to spare the remnant of a guilty nation, Constantius
assigned for the place of their exile a remote country, where they might
enjoy a safe and honorable repose. The Limigantes obeyed with reluctance;
but before they could reach, at least before they could occupy, their
destined habitations, they returned to the banks of the Danube,
exaggerating the hardships of their situation, and requesting, with
fervent professions of fidelity, that the emperor would grant them an
undisturbed settlement within the limits of the Roman provinces. Instead
of consulting his own experience of their incurable perfidy, Constantius
listened to his flatterers, who were ready to represent the honor and
advantage of accepting a colony of soldiers, at a time when it was much
easier to obtain the pecuniary contributions than the military service of
the subjects of the empire. The Limigantes were permitted to pass the
Danube; and the emperor gave audience to the multitude in a large plain
near the modern city of Buda. They surrounded the tribunal, and seemed to
hear with respect an oration full of mildness and dignity when one of the
Barbarians, casting his shoe into the air, exclaimed with a loud voice,
Marha! Marha! * a word of defiance, which was
received as a signal of the tumult. They rushed with fury to seize the
person of the emperor; his royal throne and golden couch were pillaged by
these rude hands; but the faithful defence of his guards, who died at his
feet, allowed him a moment to mount a fleet horse, and to escape from the
confusion. The disgrace which had been incurred by a treacherous surprise
was soon retrieved by the numbers and discipline of the Romans; and the
combat was only terminated by the extinction of the name and nation of the
Limigantes. The free Sarmatians were reinstated in the possession of their
ancient seats; and although Constantius distrusted the levity of their
character, he entertained some hopes that a sense of gratitude might
influence their future conduct. He had remarked the lofty stature and
obsequious demeanor of Zizais, one of the noblest of their chiefs. He
conferred on him the title of King; and Zizais proved that he was not
unworthy to reign, by a sincere and lasting attachment to the interests of
his benefactor, who, after this splendid success, received the name of
Sarmaticus from the acclamations of his
victorious army.
While the Roman emperor and the Persian monarch, at the distance of three
thousand miles, defended their extreme limits against the Barbarians of
the Danube and of the Oxus, their intermediate frontier experienced the
vicissitudes of a languid war, and a precarious truce. Two of the eastern
ministers of Constantius, the Prætorian præfect Musonian,
whose abilities were disgraced by the want of truth and integrity, and
Cassian, duke of Mesopotamia, a hardy and veteran soldier, opened a secret
negotiation with the satrap Tamsapor. These overtures of peace, translated
into the servile and flattering language of Asia, were transmitted to the
camp of the Great King; who resolved to signify, by an ambassador, the
terms which he was inclined to grant to the suppliant Romans. Narses, whom
he invested with that character, was honorably received in his passage
through Antioch and Constantinople: he reached Sirmium after a long
journey, and, at his first audience, respectfully unfolded the silken veil
which covered the haughty epistle of his sovereign. Sapor, King of Kings,
and Brother of the Sun and Moon, (such were the lofty titles affected by
Oriental vanity,) expressed his satisfaction that his brother, Constantius
Cæsar, had been taught wisdom by adversity. As the lawful successor
of Darius Hystaspes, Sapor asserted, that the River Strymon, in Macedonia,
was the true and ancient boundary of his empire; declaring, however, that
as an evidence of his moderation, he would content himself with the
provinces of Armenia and Mesopotamia, which had been fraudulently extorted
from his ancestors. He alleged, that, without the restitution of these
disputed countries, it was impossible to establish any treaty on a solid
and permanent basis; and he arrogantly threatened, that if his ambassador
returned in vain, he was prepared to take the field in the spring, and to
support the justice of his cause by the strength of his invincible arms.
Narses, who was endowed with the most polite and amiable manners,
endeavored, as far as was consistent with his duty, to soften the
harshness of the message. Both the style and substance were maturely
weighed in the Imperial council, and he was dismissed with the following
answer: "Constantius had a right to disclaim the officiousness of his
ministers, who had acted without any specific orders from the throne: he
was not, however, averse to an equal and honorable treaty; but it was
highly indecent, as well as absurd, to propose to the sole and victorious
emperor of the Roman world, the same conditions of peace which he had
indignantly rejected at the time when his power was contracted within the
narrow limits of the East: the chance of arms was uncertain; and Sapor
should recollect, that if the Romans had sometimes been vanquished in
battle, they had almost always been successful in the event of the war." A
few days after the departure of Narses, three ambassadors were sent to the
court of Sapor, who was already returned from the Scythian expedition to
his ordinary residence of Ctesiphon. A count, a notary, and a sophist, had
been selected for this important commission; and Constantius, who was
secretly anxious for the conclusion of the peace, entertained some hopes
that the dignity of the first of these ministers, the dexterity of the
second, and the rhetoric of the third, would persuade the Persian monarch
to abate of the rigor of his demands. But the progress of their
negotiation was opposed and defeated by the hostile arts of Antoninus, a
Roman subject of Syria, who had fled from oppression, and was admitted
into the councils of Sapor, and even to the royal table, where, according
to the custom of the Persians, the most important business was frequently
discussed. The dexterous fugitive promoted his interest by the same
conduct which gratified his revenge. He incessantly urged the ambition of
his new master to embrace the favorable opportunity when the bravest of
the Palatine troops were employed with the emperor in a distant war on the
Danube. He pressed Sapor to invade the exhausted and defenceless provinces
of the East, with the numerous armies of Persia, now fortified by the
alliance and accession of the fiercest Barbarians. The ambassadors of Rome
retired without success, and a second embassy, of a still more honorable
rank, was detained in strict confinement, and threatened either with death
or exile.
The military historian, who was himself despatched to observe the army of
the Persians, as they were preparing to construct a bridge of boats over
the Tigris, beheld from an eminence the plain of Assyria, as far as the
edge of the horizon, covered with men, with horses, and with arms. Sapor
appeared in the front, conspicuous by the splendor of his purple. On his
left hand, the place of honor among the Orientals, Grumbates, king of the
Chionites, displayed the stern countenance of an aged and renowned
warrior. The monarch had reserved a similar place on his right hand for
the king of the Albanians, who led his independent tribes from the shores
of the Caspian. * The satraps and generals were distributed according to
their several ranks, and the whole army, besides the numerous train of
Oriental luxury, consisted of more than one hundred thousand effective
men, inured to fatigue, and selected from the bravest nations of Asia. The
Roman deserter, who in some measure guided the councils of Sapor, had
prudently advised, that, instead of wasting the summer in tedious and
difficult sieges, he should march directly to the Euphrates, and press
forwards without delay to seize the feeble and wealthy metropolis of
Syria. But the Persians were no sooner advanced into the plains of
Mesopotamia, than they discovered that every precaution had been used
which could retard their progress, or defeat their design. The
inhabitants, with their cattle, were secured in places of strength, the
green forage throughout the country was set on fire, the fords of the
rivers were fortified by sharp stakes; military engines were planted on
the opposite banks, and a seasonable swell of the waters of the Euphrates
deterred the Barbarians from attempting the ordinary passage of the bridge
of Thapsacus. Their skilful guide, changing his plan of operations, then
conducted the army by a longer circuit, but through a fertile territory,
towards the head of the Euphrates, where the infant river is reduced to a
shallow and accessible stream. Sapor overlooked, with prudent disdain, the
strength of Nisibis; but as he passed under the walls of Amida, he
resolved to try whether the majesty of his presence would not awe the
garrison into immediate submission. The sacrilegious insult of a random
dart, which glanced against the royal tiara, convinced him of his error;
and the indignant monarch listened with impatience to the advice of his
ministers, who conjured him not to sacrifice the success of his ambition
to the gratification of his resentment. The following day Grumbates
advanced towards the gates with a select body of troops, and required the
instant surrender of the city, as the only atonement which could be
accepted for such an act of rashness and insolence. His proposals were
answered by a general discharge, and his only son, a beautiful and valiant
youth, was pierced through the heart by a javelin, shot from one of the
balistæ. The funeral of the prince of the Chionites was celebrated
according to the rites of the country; and the grief of his aged father
was alleviated by the solemn promise of Sapor, that the guilty city of
Amida should serve as a funeral pile to expiate the death, and to
perpetuate the memory, of his son.
The ancient city of Amid or Amida, which sometimes assumes the provincial
appellation of Diarbekir, is advantageously situate in a fertile plain,
watered by the natural and artificial channels of the Tigris, of which the
least inconsiderable stream bends in a semicircular form round the eastern
part of the city. The emperor Constantius had recently conferred on Amida
the honor of his own name, and the additional fortifications of strong
walls and lofty towers. It was provided with an arsenal of military
engines, and the ordinary garrison had been reenforced to the amount of
seven legions, when the place was invested by the arms of Sapor. His first
and most sanguine hopes depended on the success of a general assault. To
the several nations which followed his standard, their respective posts
were assigned; the south to the Vertæ; the north to the Albanians;
the east to the Chionites, inflamed with grief and indignation; the west
to the Segestans, the bravest of his warriors, who covered their front
with a formidable line of Indian elephants. The Persians, on every side,
supported their efforts, and animated their courage; and the monarch
himself, careless of his rank and safety, displayed, in the prosecution of
the siege, the ardor of a youthful soldier. After an obstinate combat, the
Barbarians were repulsed; they incessantly returned to the charge; they
were again driven back with a dreadful slaughter, and two rebel legions of
Gauls, who had been banished into the East, signalized their undisciplined
courage by a nocturnal sally into the heart of the Persian camp. In one of
the fiercest of these repeated assaults, Amida was betrayed by the
treachery of a deserter, who indicated to the Barbarians a secret and
neglected staircase, scooped out of the rock that hangs over the stream of
the Tigris. Seventy chosen archers of the royal guard ascended in silence
to the third story of a lofty tower, which commanded the precipice; they
elevated on high the Persian banner, the signal of confidence to the
assailants, and of dismay to the besieged; and if this devoted band could
have maintained their post a few minutes longer, the reduction of the
place might have been purchased by the sacrifice of their lives. After
Sapor had tried, without success, the efficacy of force and of stratagem,
he had recourse to the slower but more certain operations of a regular
siege, in the conduct of which he was instructed by the skill of the Roman
deserters. The trenches were opened at a convenient distance, and the
troops destined for that service advanced under the portable cover of
strong hurdles, to fill up the ditch, and undermine the foundations of the
walls. Wooden towers were at the same time constructed, and moved forwards
on wheels, till the soldiers, who were provided with every species of
missile weapons, could engage almost on level ground with the troops who
defended the rampart. Every mode of resistance which art could suggest, or
courage could execute, was employed in the defence of Amida, and the works
of Sapor were more than once destroyed by the fire of the Romans. But the
resources of a besieged city may be exhausted. The Persians repaired their
losses, and pushed their approaches; a large preach was made by the
battering-ram, and the strength of the garrison, wasted by the sword and
by disease, yielded to the fury of the assault. The soldiers, the
citizens, their wives, their children, all who had not time to escape
through the opposite gate, were involved by the conquerors in a
promiscuous massacre.
But the ruin of Amida was the safety of the Roman provinces. As soon as
the first transports of victory had subsided, Sapor was at leisure to
reflect, that to chastise a disobedient city, he had lost the flower of
his troops, and the most favorable season for conquest. Thirty thousand of
his veterans had fallen under the walls of Amida, during the continuance
of a siege, which lasted seventy-three days; and the disappointed monarch
returned to his capital with affected triumph and secret mortification. It
is more than probable, that the inconstancy of his Barbarian allies was
tempted to relinquish a war in which they had encountered such unexpected
difficulties; and that the aged king of the Chionites, satiated with
revenge, turned away with horror from a scene of action where he had been
deprived of the hope of his family and nation. The strength as well as the
spirit of the army with which Sapor took the field in the ensuing spring
was no longer equal to the unbounded views of his ambition. Instead of
aspiring to the conquest of the East, he was obliged to content himself
with the reduction of two fortified cities of Mesopotamia, Singara and
Bezabde; the one situate in the midst of a sandy desert, the other in a
small peninsula, surrounded almost on every side by the deep and rapid
stream of the Tigris. Five Roman legions, of the diminutive size to which
they had been reduced in the age of Constantine, were made prisoners, and
sent into remote captivity on the extreme confines of Persia. After
dismantling the walls of Singara, the conqueror abandoned that solitary
and sequestered place; but he carefully restored the fortifications of
Bezabde, and fixed in that important post a garrison or colony of
veterans; amply supplied with every means of defence, and animated by high
sentiments of honor and fidelity. Towards the close of the campaign, the
arms of Sapor incurred some disgrace by an unsuccessful enterprise against
Virtha, or Tecrit, a strong, or, as it was universally esteemed till the
age of Tamerlane, an impregnable fortress of the independent Arabs.
The defence of the East against the arms of Sapor required and would have
exercised, the abilities of the most consummate general; and it seemed
fortunate for the state, that it was the actual province of the brave
Ursicinus, who alone deserved the confidence of the soldiers and people.
In the hour of danger, Ursicinus was removed from his station by the
intrigues of the eunuchs; and the military command of the East was
bestowed, by the same influence, on Sabinian, a wealthy and subtle
veteran, who had attained the infirmities, without acquiring the
experience, of age. By a second order, which issued from the same jealous
and inconstant councils, Ursicinus was again despatched to the frontier of
Mesopotamia, and condemned to sustain the labors of a war, the honors of
which had been transferred to his unworthy rival. Sabinian fixed his
indolent station under the walls of Edessa; and while he amused himself
with the idle parade of military exercise, and moved to the sound of
flutes in the Pyrrhic dance, the public defence was abandoned to the
boldness and diligence of the former general of the East. But whenever
Ursicinus recommended any vigorous plan of operations; when he proposed,
at the head of a light and active army, to wheel round the foot of the
mountains, to intercept the convoys of the enemy, to harass the wide
extent of the Persian lines, and to relieve the distress of Amida; the
timid and envious commander alleged, that he was restrained by his
positive orders from endangering the safety of the troops. Amida was at
length taken; its bravest defenders, who had escaped the sword of the
Barbarians, died in the Roman camp by the hand of the executioner: and
Ursicinus himself, after supporting the disgrace of a partial inquiry, was
punished for the misconduct of Sabinian by the loss of his military rank.
But Constantius soon experienced the truth of the prediction which honest
indignation had extorted from his injured lieutenant, that as long as such
maxims of government were suffered to prevail, the emperor himself would
find it is no easy task to defend his eastern dominions from the invasion
of a foreign enemy. When he had subdued or pacified the Barbarians of the
Danube, Constantius proceeded by slow marches into the East; and after he
had wept over the smoking ruins of Amida, he formed, with a powerful army,
the siege of Bezabde. The walls were shaken by the reiterated efforts of
the most enormous of the battering-rams; the town was reduced to the last
extremity; but it was still defended by the patient and intrepid valor of
the garrison, till the approach of the rainy season obliged the emperor to
raise the siege, and ingloriously to retreat into his winter quarters at
Antioch. The pride of Constantius, and the ingenuity of his courtiers,
were at a loss to discover any materials for panegyric in the events of
the Persian war; while the glory of his cousin Julian, to whose military
command he had intrusted the provinces of Gaul, was proclaimed to the
world in the simple and concise narrative of his exploits.
In the blind fury of civil discord, Constantius had abandoned to the
Barbarians of Germany the countries of Gaul, which still acknowledged the
authority of his rival. A numerous swarm of Franks and Alemanni were
invited to cross the Rhine by presents and promises, by the hopes of
spoil, and by a perpetual grant of all the territories which they should
be able to subdue. But the emperor, who for a temporary service had thus
imprudently provoked the rapacious spirit of the Barbarians, soon
discovered and lamented the difficulty of dismissing these formidable
allies, after they had tasted the richness of the Roman soil. Regardless
of the nice distinction of loyalty and rebellion, these undisciplined
robbers treated as their natural enemies all the subjects of the empire,
who possessed any property which they were desirous of acquiring
Forty-five flourishing cities, Tongres, Cologne, Treves, Worms, Spires,
Strasburgh, &c., besides a far greater number of towns and villages,
were pillaged, and for the most part reduced to ashes. The Barbarians of
Germany, still faithful to the maxims of their ancestors, abhorred the
confinement of walls, to which they applied the odious names of prisons
and sepulchres; and fixing their independent habitations on the banks of
rivers, the Rhine, the Moselle, and the Meuse, they secured themselves
against the danger of a surprise, by a rude and hasty fortification of
large trees, which were felled and thrown across the roads. The Alemanni
were established in the modern countries of Alsace and Lorraine; the
Franks occupied the island of the Batavians, together with an extensive
district of Brabant, which was then known by the appellation of Toxandria,
and may deserve to be considered as the original seat of their Gallic
monarchy. From the sources, to the mouth, of the Rhine, the conquests of
the Germans extended above forty miles to the west of that river, over a
country peopled by colonies of their own name and nation: and the scene of
their devastations was three times more extensive than that of their
conquests. At a still greater distance the open towns of Gaul were
deserted, and the inhabitants of the fortified cities, who trusted to
their strength and vigilance, were obliged to content themselves with such
supplies of corn as they could raise on the vacant land within the
enclosure of their walls. The diminished legions, destitute of pay and
provisions, of arms and discipline, trembled at the approach, and even at
the name, of the Barbarians.
Under these melancholy circumstances, an unexperienced youth was appointed
to save and to govern the provinces of Gaul, or rather, as he expressed it
himself, to exhibit the vain image of Imperial greatness. The retired
scholastic education of Julian, in which he had been more conversant with
books than with arms, with the dead than with the living, left him in
profound ignorance of the practical arts of war and government; and when
he awkwardly repeated some military exercise which it was necessary for
him to learn, he exclaimed with a sigh, "O Plato, Plato, what a task for a
philosopher!" Yet even this speculative philosophy, which men of business
are too apt to despise, had filled the mind of Julian with the noblest
precepts and the most shining examples; had animated him with the love of
virtue, the desire of fame, and the contempt of death. The habits of
temperance recommended in the schools, are still more essential in the
severe discipline of a camp. The simple wants of nature regulated the
measure of his food and sleep. Rejecting with disdain the delicacies
provided for his table, he satisfied his appetite with the coarse and
common fare which was allotted to the meanest soldiers. During the rigor
of a Gallic winter, he never suffered a fire in his bed-chamber; and after
a short and interrupted slumber, he frequently rose in the middle of the
night from a carpet spread on the floor, to despatch any urgent business,
to visit his rounds, or to steal a few moments for the prosecution of his
favorite studies. The precepts of eloquence, which he had hitherto
practised on fancied topics of declamation, were more usefully applied to
excite or to assuage the passions of an armed multitude: and although
Julian, from his early habits of conversation and literature, was more
familiarly acquainted with the beauties of the Greek language, he had
attained a competent knowledge of the Latin tongue. Since Julian was not
originally designed for the character of a legislator, or a judge, it is
probable that the civil jurisprudence of the Romans had not engaged any
considerable share of his attention: but he derived from his philosophic
studies an inflexible regard for justice, tempered by a disposition to
clemency; the knowledge of the general principles of equity and evidence,
and the faculty of patiently investigating the most intricate and tedious
questions which could be proposed for his discussion. The measures of
policy, and the operations of war, must submit to the various accidents of
circumstance and character, and the unpractised student will often be
perplexed in the application of the most perfect theory. But in the
acquisition of this important science, Julian was assisted by the active
vigor of his own genius, as well as by the wisdom and experience of
Sallust, and officer of rank, who soon conceived a sincere attachment for
a prince so worthy of his friendship; and whose incorruptible integrity
was adorned by the talent of insinuating the harshest truths without
wounding the delicacy of a royal ear.
Immediately after Julian had received the purple at Milan, he was sent
into Gaul with a feeble retinue of three hundred and sixty soldiers. At
Vienna, where he passed a painful and anxious winter in the hands of those
ministers to whom Constantius had intrusted the direction of his conduct,
the Cæsar was informed of the siege and deliverance of Autun. That
large and ancient city, protected only by a ruined wall and pusillanimous
garrison, was saved by the generous resolution of a few veterans, who
resumed their arms for the defence of their country. In his march from
Autun, through the heart of the Gallic provinces, Julian embraced with
ardor the earliest opportunity of signalizing his courage. At the head of
a small body of archers and heavy cavalry, he preferred the shorter but
the more dangerous of two roads; * and sometimes eluding, and sometimes
resisting, the attacks of the Barbarians, who were masters of the field,
he arrived with honor and safety at the camp near Rheims, where the Roman
troops had been ordered to assemble. The aspect of their young prince
revived the drooping spirits of the soldiers, and they marched from Rheims
in search of the enemy, with a confidence which had almost proved fatal to
them. The Alemanni, familiarized to the knowledge of the country, secretly
collected their scattered forces, and seizing the opportunity of a dark
and rainy day, poured with unexpected fury on the rear-guard of the
Romans. Before the inevitable disorder could be remedied, two legions were
destroyed; and Julian was taught by experience that caution and vigilance
are the most important lessons of the art of war. In a second and more
successful action, * he recovered and established his military fame; but
as the agility of the Barbarians saved them from the pursuit, his victory
was neither bloody nor decisive. He advanced, however, to the banks of the
Rhine, surveyed the ruins of Cologne, convinced himself of the
difficulties of the war, and retreated on the approach of winter,
discontented with the court, with his army, and with his own success. The
power of the enemy was yet unbroken; and the Cæsar had no sooner
separated his troops, and fixed his own quarters at Sens, in the centre of
Gaul, than he was surrounded and besieged, by a numerous host of Germans.
Reduced, in this extremity, to the resources of his own mind, he displayed
a prudent intrepidity, which compensated for all the deficiencies of the
place and garrison; and the Barbarians, at the end of thirty days, were
obliged to retire with disappointed rage.
The conscious pride of Julian, who was indebted only to his sword for this
signal deliverance, was imbittered by the reflection, that he was
abandoned, betrayed, and perhaps devoted to destruction, by those who were
bound to assist him, by every tie of honor and fidelity. Marcellus,
master-general of the cavalry in Gaul, interpreting too strictly the
jealous orders of the court, beheld with supine indifference the distress
of Julian, and had restrained the troops under his command from marching
to the relief of Sens. If the Cæsar had dissembled in silence so
dangerous an insult, his person and authority would have been exposed to
the contempt of the world; and if an action so criminal had been suffered
to pass with impunity, the emperor would have confirmed the suspicions,
which received a very specious color from his past conduct towards the
princes of the Flavian family. Marcellus was recalled, and gently
dismissed from his office. In his room Severus was appointed general of
the cavalry; an experienced soldier, of approved courage and fidelity, who
could advise with respect, and execute with zeal; and who submitted,
without reluctance to the supreme command which Julian, by the interest of
his patroness Eusebia, at length obtained over the armies of Gaul. A very
judicious plan of operations was adopted for the approaching campaign.
Julian himself, at the head of the remains of the veteran bands, and of
some new levies which he had been permitted to form, boldly penetrated
into the centre of the German cantonments, and carefully reestablished the
fortifications of Saverne, in an advantageous post, which would either
check the incursions, or intercept the retreat, of the enemy. At the same
time, Barbatio, general of the infantry, advanced from Milan with an army
of thirty thousand men, and passing the mountains, prepared to throw a
bridge over the Rhine, in the neighborhood of Basil. It was reasonable to
expect that the Alemanni, pressed on either side by the Roman arms, would
soon be forced to evacuate the provinces of Gaul, and to hasten to the
defence of their native country. But the hopes of the campaign were
defeated by the incapacity, or the envy, or the secret instructions, of
Barbatio; who acted as if he had been the enemy of the Cæsar, and
the secret ally of the Barbarians. The negligence with which he permitted
a troop of pillagers freely to pass, and to return almost before the gates
of his camp, may be imputed to his want of abilities; but the treasonable
act of burning a number of boats, and a superfluous stock of provisions,
which would have been of the most essential service to the army of Gaul,
was an evidence of his hostile and criminal intentions. The Germans
despised an enemy who appeared destitute either of power or of inclination
to offend them; and the ignominious retreat of Barbatio deprived Julian of
the expected support; and left him to extricate himself from a hazardous
situation, where he could neither remain with safety, nor retire with
honor.
As soon as they were delivered from the fears of invasion, the Alemanni
prepared to chastise the Roman youth, who presumed to dispute the
possession of that country, which they claimed as their own by the right
of conquest and of treaties. They employed three days, and as many nights,
in transporting over the Rhine their military powers. The fierce
Chnodomar, shaking the ponderous javelin which he had victoriously wielded
against the brother of Magnentius, led the van of the Barbarians, and
moderated by his experience the martial ardor which his example inspired.
He was followed by six other kings, by ten princes of regal extraction, by
a long train of high-spirited nobles, and by thirty-five thousand of the
bravest warriors of the tribes of Germany. The confidence derived from the
view of their own strength, was increased by the intelligence which they
received from a deserter, that the Cæsar, with a feeble army of
thirteen thousand men, occupied a post about one-and-twenty miles from
their camp of Strasburgh. With this inadequate force, Julian resolved to
seek and to encounter the Barbarian host; and the chance of a general
action was preferred to the tedious and uncertain operation of separately
engaging the dispersed parties of the Alemanni. The Romans marched in
close order, and in two columns; the cavalry on the right, the infantry on
the left; and the day was so far spent when they appeared in sight of the
enemy, that Julian was desirous of deferring the battle till the next
morning, and of allowing his troops to recruit their exhausted strength by
the necessary refreshments of sleep and food. Yielding, however, with some
reluctance, to the clamors of the soldiers, and even to the opinion of his
council, he exhorted them to justify by their valor the eager impatience,
which, in case of a defeat, would be universally branded with the epithets
of rashness and presumption. The trumpets sounded, the military shout was
heard through the field, and the two armies rushed with equal fury to the
charge. The Cæsar, who conducted in person his right wing, depended
on the dexterity of his archers, and the weight of his cuirassiers. But
his ranks were instantly broken by an irregular mixture of light horse and
of light infantry, and he had the mortification of beholding the flight of
six hundred of his most renowned cuirassiers. The fugitives were stopped
and rallied by the presence and authority of Julian, who, careless of his
own safety, threw himself before them, and urging every motive of shame
and honor, led them back against the victorious enemy. The conflict
between the two lines of infantry was obstinate and bloody. The Germans
possessed the superiority of strength and stature, the Romans that of
discipline and temper; and as the Barbarians, who served under the
standard of the empire, united the respective advantages of both parties,
their strenuous efforts, guided by a skilful leader, at length determined
the event of the day. The Romans lost four tribunes, and two hundred and
forty-three soldiers, in this memorable battle of Strasburgh, so glorious
to the Cæsar, and so salutary to the afflicted provinces of Gaul.
Six thousand of the Alemanni were slain in the field, without including
those who were drowned in the Rhine, or transfixed with darts while they
attempted to swim across the river. Chnodomar himself was surrounded and
taken prisoner, with three of his brave companions, who had devoted
themselves to follow in life or death the fate of their chieftain. Julian
received him with military pomp in the council of his officers; and
expressing a generous pity for the fallen state, dissembled his inward
contempt for the abject humiliation, of his captive. Instead of exhibiting
the vanquished king of the Alemanni, as a grateful spectacle to the cities
of Gaul, he respectfully laid at the feet of the emperor this splendid
trophy of his victory. Chnodomar experienced an honorable treatment: but
the impatient Barbarian could not long survive his defeat, his
confinement, and his exile.
After Julian had repulsed the Alemanni from the provinces of the Upper
Rhine, he turned his arms against the Franks, who were seated nearer to
the ocean, on the confines of Gaul and Germany; and who, from their
numbers, and still more from their intrepid valor, had ever been esteemed
the most formidable of the Barbarians. Although they were strongly
actuated by the allurements of rapine, they professed a disinterested love
of war; which they considered as the supreme honor and felicity of human
nature; and their minds and bodies were so completely hardened by
perpetual action, that, according to the lively expression of an orator,
the snows of winter were as pleasant to them as the flowers of spring. In
the month of December, which followed the battle of Strasburgh, Julian
attacked a body of six hundred Franks, who had thrown themselves into two
castles on the Meuse. In the midst of that severe season they sustained,
with inflexible constancy, a siege of fifty-four days; till at length,
exhausted by hunger, and satisfied that the vigilance of the enemy, in
breaking the ice of the river, left them no hopes of escape, the Franks
consented, for the first time, to dispense with the ancient law which
commanded them to conquer or to die. The Cæsar immediately sent his
captives to the court of Constantius, who, accepting them as a valuable
present, rejoiced in the opportunity of adding so many heroes to the
choicest troops of his domestic guards. The obstinate resistance of this
handful of Franks apprised Julian of the difficulties of the expedition
which he meditated for the ensuing spring, against the whole body of the
nation. His rapid diligence surprised and astonished the active
Barbarians. Ordering his soldiers to provide themselves with biscuit for
twenty days, he suddenly pitched his camp near Tongres, while the enemy
still supposed him in his winter quarters of Paris, expecting the slow
arrival of his convoys from Aquitain. Without allowing the Franks to unite
or deliberate, he skilfully spread his legions from Cologne to the ocean;
and by the terror, as well as by the success, of his arms, soon reduced
the suppliant tribes to implore the clemency, and to obey the commands, of
their conqueror. The Chamavians submissively retired to their former
habitations beyond the Rhine; but the Salians were permitted to possess
their new establishment of Toxandria, as the subjects and auxiliaries of
the Roman empire. The treaty was ratified by solemn oaths; and perpetual
inspectors were appointed to reside among the Franks, with the authority
of enforcing the strict observance of the conditions. An incident is
related, interesting enough in itself, and by no means repugnant to the
character of Julian, who ingeniously contrived both the plot and the
catastrophe of the tragedy. When the Chamavians sued for peace, he
required the son of their king, as the only hostage on whom he could rely.
A mournful silence, interrupted by tears and groans, declared the sad
perplexity of the Barbarians; and their aged chief lamented in pathetic
language, that his private loss was now imbittered by a sense of public
calamity. While the Chamavians lay prostrate at the foot of his throne,
the royal captive, whom they believed to have been slain, unexpectedly
appeared before their eyes; and as soon as the tumult of joy was hushed
into attention, the Cæsar addressed the assembly in the following
terms: "Behold the son, the prince, whom you wept. You had lost him by
your fault. God and the Romans have restored him to you. I shall still
preserve and educate the youth, rather as a monument of my own virtue,
than as a pledge of your sincerity. Should you presume to violate the
faith which you have sworn, the arms of the republic will avenge the
perfidy, not on the innocent, but on the guilty." The Barbarians withdrew
from his presence, impressed with the warmest sentiments of gratitude and
admiration.
It was not enough for Julian to have delivered the provinces of Gaul from
the Barbarians of Germany. He aspired to emulate the glory of the first
and most illustrious of the emperors; after whose example, he composed his
own commentaries of the Gallic war. Cæsar has related, with
conscious pride, the manner in which he twice
passed the Rhine. Julian could boast, that before he assumed the title of
Augustus, he had carried the Roman eagles beyond that great river in
three successful expeditions. The consternation
of the Germans, after the battle of Strasburgh, encouraged him to the
first attempt; and the reluctance of the troops soon yielded to the
persuasive eloquence of a leader, who shared the fatigues and dangers
which he imposed on the meanest of the soldiers. The villages on either
side of the Meyn, which were plentifully stored with corn and cattle, felt
the ravages of an invading army. The principal houses, constructed with
some imitation of Roman elegance, were consumed by the flames; and the Cæsar
boldly advanced about ten miles, till his progress was stopped by a dark
and impenetrable forest, undermined by subterraneous passages, which
threatened with secret snares and ambush every step of the assailants. The
ground was already covered with snow; and Julian, after repairing an
ancient castle which had been erected by Trajan, granted a truce of ten
months to the submissive Barbarians. At the expiration of the truce,
Julian undertook a second expedition beyond the Rhine, to humble the pride
of Surmar and Hortaire, two of the kings of the Alemanni, who had been
present at the battle of Strasburgh. They promised to restore all the
Roman captives who yet remained alive; and as the Cæsar had procured
an exact account from the cities and villages of Gaul, of the inhabitants
whom they had lost, he detected every attempt to deceive him, with a
degree of readiness and accuracy, which almost established the belief of
his supernatural knowledge. His third expedition was still more splendid
and important than the two former. The Germans had collected their
military powers, and moved along the opposite banks of the river, with a
design of destroying the bridge, and of preventing the passage of the
Romans. But this judicious plan of defence was disconcerted by a skilful
diversion. Three hundred light-armed and active soldiers were detached in
forty small boats, to fall down the stream in silence, and to land at some
distance from the posts of the enemy. They executed their orders with so
much boldness and celerity, that they had almost surprised the Barbarian
chiefs, who returned in the fearless confidence of intoxication from one
of their nocturnal festivals. Without repeating the uniform and disgusting
tale of slaughter and devastation, it is sufficient to observe, that
Julian dictated his own conditions of peace to six of the haughtiest kings
of the Alemanni, three of whom were permitted to view the severe
discipline and martial pomp of a Roman camp. Followed by twenty thousand
captives, whom he had rescued from the chains of the Barbarians, the Cæsar
repassed the Rhine, after terminating a war, the success of which has been
compared to the ancient glories of the Punic and Cimbric victories.
As soon as the valor and conduct of Julian had secured an interval of
peace, he applied himself to a work more congenial to his humane and
philosophic temper. The cities of Gaul, which had suffered from the
inroads of the Barbarians, he diligently repaired; and seven important
posts, between Mentz and the mouth of the Rhine, are particularly
mentioned, as having been rebuilt and fortified by the order of Julian.
The vanquished Germans had submitted to the just but humiliating condition
of preparing and conveying the necessary materials. The active zeal of
Julian urged the prosecution of the work; and such was the spirit which he
had diffused among the troops, that the auxiliaries themselves, waiving
their exemption from any duties of fatigue, contended in the most servile
labors with the diligence of the Roman soldiers. It was incumbent on the Cæsar
to provide for the subsistence, as well as for the safety, of the
inhabitants and of the garrisons. The desertion of the former, and the
mutiny of the latter, must have been the fatal and inevitable consequences
of famine. The tillage of the provinces of Gaul had been interrupted by
the calamities of war; but the scanty harvests of the continent were
supplied, by his paternal care, from the plenty of the adjacent island.
Six hundred large barks, framed in the forest of the Ardennes, made
several voyages to the coast of Britain; and returning from thence, laden
with corn, sailed up the Rhine, and distributed their cargoes to the
several towns and fortresses along the banks of the river. The arms of
Julian had restored a free and secure navigation, which Constantius had
offered to purchase at the expense of his dignity, and of a tributary
present of two thousand pounds of silver. The emperor parsimoniously
refused to his soldiers the sums which he granted with a lavish and
trembling hand to the Barbarians. The dexterity, as well as the firmness,
of Julian was put to a severe trial, when he took the field with a
discontented army, which had already served two campaigns, without
receiving any regular pay or any extraordinary donative.
A tender regard for the peace and happiness of his subjects was the ruling
principle which directed, or seemed to direct, the administration of
Julian. He devoted the leisure of his winter quarters to the offices of
civil government; and affected to assume, with more pleasure, the
character of a magistrate than that of a general. Before he took the
field, he devolved on the provincial governors most of the public and
private causes which had been referred to his tribunal; but, on his
return, he carefully revised their proceedings, mitigated the rigor of the
law, and pronounced a second judgment on the judges themselves. Superior
to the last temptation of virtuous minds, an indiscreet and intemperate
zeal for justice, he restrained, with calmness and dignity, the warmth of
an advocate, who prosecuted, for extortion, the president of the
Narbonnese province. "Who will ever be found guilty," exclaimed the
vehement Delphidius, "if it be enough to deny?" "And who," replied Julian,
"will ever be innocent, if it be sufficient to affirm?" In the general
administration of peace and war, the interest of the sovereign is commonly
the same as that of his people; but Constantius would have thought himself
deeply injured, if the virtues of Julian had defrauded him of any part of
the tribute which he extorted from an oppressed and exhausted country. The
prince who was invested with the ensigns of royalty, might sometimes
presume to correct the rapacious insolence of his inferior agents, to
expose their corrupt arts, and to introduce an equal and easier mode of
collection. But the management of the finances was more safely intrusted
to Florentius, prætorian præfect of Gaul, an effeminate
tyrant, incapable of pity or remorse: and the haughty minister complained
of the most decent and gentle opposition, while Julian himself was rather
inclined to censure the weakness of his own behavior. The Cæsar had
rejected, with abhorrence, a mandate for the levy of an extraordinary tax;
a new superindiction, which the præfect had offered for his
signature; and the faithful picture of the public misery, by which he had
been obliged to justify his refusal, offended the court of Constantius. We
may enjoy the pleasure of reading the sentiments of Julian, as he
expresses them with warmth and freedom in a letter to one of his most
intimate friends. After stating his own conduct, he proceeds in the
following terms: "Was it possible for the disciple of Plato and Aristotle
to act otherwise than I have done? Could I abandon the unhappy subjects
intrusted to my care? Was I not called upon to defend them from the
repeated injuries of these unfeeling robbers? A tribune who deserts his
post is punished with death, and deprived of the honors of burial. With
what justice could I pronounce his sentence, if,
in the hour of danger, I myself neglected a duty far more sacred and far
more important? God has placed me in this elevated post; his providence
will guard and support me. Should I be condemned to suffer, I shall derive
comfort from the testimony of a pure and upright conscience. Would to
Heaven that I still possessed a counsellor like Sallust! If they think
proper to send me a successor, I shall submit without reluctance; and had
much rather improve the short opportunity of doing good, than enjoy a long
and lasting impunity of evil." The precarious and dependent situation of
Julian displayed his virtues and concealed his defects. The young hero who
supported, in Gaul, the throne of Constantius, was not permitted to reform
the vices of the government; but he had courage to alleviate or to pity
the distress of the people. Unless he had been able to revive the martial
spirit of the Romans, or to introduce the arts of industry and refinement
among their savage enemies, he could not entertain any rational hopes of
securing the public tranquillity, either by the peace or conquest of
Germany. Yet the victories of Julian suspended, for a short time, the
inroads of the Barbarians, and delayed the ruin of the Western Empire.
His salutary influence restored the cities of Gaul, which had been so long
exposed to the evils of civil discord, Barbarian war, and domestic
tyranny; and the spirit of industry was revived with the hopes of
enjoyment. Agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, again flourished under
the protection of the laws; and the curi, or
civil corporations, were again filled with useful and respectable members:
the youth were no longer apprehensive of marriage; and married persons
were no longer apprehensive of posterity: the public and private festivals
were celebrated with customary pomp; and the frequent and secure
intercourse of the provinces displayed the image of national prosperity. A
mind like that of Julian must have felt the general happiness of which he
was the author; but he viewed, with particular satisfaction and
complacency, the city of Paris; the seat of his winter residence, and the
object even of his partial affection. That splendid capital, which now
embraces an ample territory on either side of the Seine, was originally
confined to the small island in the midst of the river, from whence the
inhabitants derived a supply of pure and salubrious water. The river
bathed the foot of the walls; and the town was accessible only by two
wooden bridges. A forest overspread the northern side of the Seine, but on
the south, the ground, which now bears the name of the University, was
insensibly covered with houses, and adorned with a palace and
amphitheatre, baths, an aqueduct, and a field of Mars for the exercise of
the Roman troops. The severity of the climate was tempered by the
neighborhood of the ocean; and with some precautions, which experience had
taught, the vine and fig-tree were successfully cultivated. But in
remarkable winters, the Seine was deeply frozen; and the huge pieces of
ice that floated down the stream, might be compared, by an Asiatic, to the
blocks of white marble which were extracted from the quarries of Phrygia.
The licentiousness and corruption of Antioch recalled to the memory of
Julian the severe and simple manners of his beloved Lutetia; where the
amusements of the theatre were unknown or despised. He indignantly
contrasted the effeminate Syrians with the brave and honest simplicity of
the Gauls, and almost forgave the intemperance, which was the only stain
of the Celtic character. If Julian could now revisit the capital of
France, he might converse with men of science and genius, capable of
understanding and of instructing a disciple of the Greeks; he might excuse
the lively and graceful follies of a nation, whose martial spirit has
never been enervated by the indulgence of luxury; and he must applaud the
perfection of that inestimable art, which softens and refines and
embellishes the intercourse of social life.
The Motives, Progress, And Effects Of The Conversion Of Constantine.—Legal Establishment And Constitution Of The Christian Or Catholic Church.
The public establishment of Christianity may be considered as one of those
important and domestic revolutions which excite the most lively curiosity,
and afford the most valuable instruction. The victories and the civil
policy of Constantine no longer influence the state of Europe; but a
considerable portion of the globe still retains the impression which it
received from the conversion of that monarch; and the ecclesiastical
institutions of his reign are still connected, by an indissoluble chain,
with the opinions, the passions, and the interests of the present
generation.
In the consideration of a subject which may be examined with impartiality,
but cannot be viewed with indifference, a difficulty immediately arises of
a very unexpected nature; that of ascertaining the real and precise date
of the conversion of Constantine. The eloquent Lactantius, in the midst of
his court, seems impatient to proclaim to the world the glorious example
of the sovereign of Gaul; who, in the first moments of his reign,
acknowledged and adored the majesty of the true and only God. The learned
Eusebius has ascribed the faith of Constantine to the miraculous sign
which was displayed in the heavens whilst he meditated and prepared the
Italian expedition. The historian Zosimus maliciously asserts, that the
emperor had imbrued his hands in the blood of his eldest son, before he
publicly renounced the gods of Rome and of his ancestors. The perplexity
produced by these discordant authorities is derived from the behavior of
Constantine himself. According to the strictness of ecclesiastical
language, the first of the Christian emperors
was unworthy of that name, till the moment of his death; since it was only
during his last illness that he received, as a catechumen, the imposition
of hands, and was afterwards admitted, by the initiatory rites of baptism,
into the number of the faithful. The Christianity of Constantine must be
allowed in a much more vague and qualified sense; and the nicest accuracy
is required in tracing the slow and almost imperceptible gradations by
which the monarch declared himself the protector, and at length the
proselyte, of the church. It was an arduous task to eradicate the habits
and prejudices of his education, to acknowledge the divine power of
Christ, and to understand that the truth of his revelation was
incompatible with the worship of the gods. The obstacles which he had
probably experienced in his own mind, instructed him to proceed with
caution in the momentous change of a national religion; and he insensibly
discovered his new opinions, as far as he could enforce them with safety
and with effect. During the whole course of his reign, the stream of
Christianity flowed with a gentle, though accelerated, motion: but its
general direction was sometimes checked, and sometimes diverted, by the
accidental circumstances of the times, and by the prudence, or possibly by
the caprice, of the monarch. His ministers were permitted to signify the
intentions of their master in the various language which was best adapted
to their respective principles; and he artfully balanced the hopes and
fears of his subjects, by publishing in the same year two edicts; the
first of which enjoined the solemn observance of Sunday, and the second
directed the regular consultation of the Aruspices. While this important
revolution yet remained in suspense, the Christians and the Pagans watched
the conduct of their sovereign with the same anxiety, but with very
opposite sentiments. The former were prompted by every motive of zeal, as
well as vanity, to exaggerate the marks of his favor, and the evidences of
his faith. The latter, till their just apprehensions were changed into
despair and resentment, attempted to conceal from the world, and from
themselves, that the gods of Rome could no longer reckon the emperor in
the number of their votaries. The same passions and prejudices have
engaged the partial writers of the times to connect the public profession
of Christianity with the most glorious or the most ignominious æra
of the reign of Constantine.
Whatever symptoms of Christian piety might transpire in the discourses or
actions of Constantine, he persevered till he was near forty years of age
in the practice of the established religion; and the same conduct which in
the court of Nicomedia might be imputed to his fear, could be ascribed
only to the inclination or policy of the sovereign of Gaul. His liberality
restored and enriched the temples of the gods; the medals which issued
from his Imperial mint are impressed with the figures and attributes of
Jupiter and Apollo, of Mars and Hercules; and his filial piety increased
the council of Olympus by the solemn apotheosis of his father Constantius.
But the devotion of Constantine was more peculiarly directed to the genius
of the Sun, the Apollo of Greek and Roman mythology; and he was pleased to
be represented with the symbols of the God of Light and Poetry. The
unerring shafts of that deity, the brightness of his eyes, his laurel
wreath, immortal beauty, and elegant accomplishments, seem to point him
out as the patron of a young hero. The altars of Apollo were crowned with
the votive offerings of Constantine; and the credulous multitude were
taught to believe, that the emperor was permitted to behold with mortal
eyes the visible majesty of their tutelar deity; and that, either walking
or in a vision, he was blessed with the auspicious omens of a long and
victorious reign. The Sun was universally celebrated as the invincible
guide and protector of Constantine; and the Pagans might reasonably expect
that the insulted god would pursue with unrelenting vengeance the impiety
of his ungrateful favorite.
As long as Constantine exercised a limited sovereignty over the provinces
of Gaul, his Christian subjects were protected by the authority, and
perhaps by the laws, of a prince, who wisely left to the gods the care of
vindicating their own honor. If we may credit the assertion of Constantine
himself, he had been an indignant spectator of the savage cruelties which
were inflicted, by the hands of Roman soldiers, on those citizens whose
religion was their only crime. In the East and in the West, he had seen
the different effects of severity and indulgence; and as the former was
rendered still more odious by the example of Galerius, his implacable
enemy, the latter was recommended to his imitation by the authority and
advice of a dying father. The son of Constantius immediately suspended or
repealed the edicts of persecution, and granted the free exercise of their
religious ceremonies to all those who had already professed themselves
members of the church. They were soon encouraged to depend on the favor as
well as on the justice of their sovereign, who had imbibed a secret and
sincere reverence for the name of Christ, and for the God of the
Christians.
About five months after the conquest of Italy, the emperor made a solemn
and authentic declaration of his sentiments by the celebrated edict of
Milan, which restored peace to the Catholic church. In the personal
interview of the two western princes, Constantine, by the ascendant of
genius and power, obtained the ready concurrence of his colleague,
Licinius; the union of their names and authority disarmed the fury of
Maximin; and after the death of the tyrant of the East, the edict of Milan
was received as a general and fundamental law of the Roman world.
The wisdom of the emperors provided for the restitution of all the civil
and religious rights of which the Christians had been so unjustly
deprived. It was enacted that the places of worship, and public lands,
which had been confiscated, should be restored to the church, without
dispute, without delay, and without expense; and this severe injunction
was accompanied with a gracious promise, that if any of the purchasers had
paid a fair and adequate price, they should be indemnified from the
Imperial treasury. The salutary regulations which guard the future
tranquillity of the faithful are framed on the principles of enlarged and
equal toleration; and such an equality must have been interpreted by a
recent sect as an advantageous and honorable distinction. The two emperors
proclaim to the world, that they have granted a free and absolute power to
the Christians, and to all others, of following the religion which each
individual thinks proper to prefer, to which he has addicted his mind, and
which he may deem the best adapted to his own use. They carefully explain
every ambiguous word, remove every exception, and exact from the governors
of the provinces a strict obedience to the true and simple meaning of an
edict, which was designed to establish and secure, without any limitation,
the claims of religious liberty. They condescend to assign two weighty
reasons which have induced them to allow this universal toleration: the
humane intention of consulting the peace and happiness of their people;
and the pious hope, that, by such a conduct, they shall appease and
propitiate the Deity, whose seat is in heaven. They gratefully acknowledge
the many signal proofs which they have received of the divine favor; and
they trust that the same Providence will forever continue to protect the
prosperity of the prince and people. From these vague and indefinite
expressions of piety, three suppositions may be deduced, of a different,
but not of an incompatible nature. The mind of Constantine might fluctuate
between the Pagan and the Christian religions. According to the loose and
complying notions of Polytheism, he might acknowledge the God of the
Christians as one of the many
deities who compose the hierarchy of heaven. Or perhaps he might embrace
the philosophic and pleasing idea, that, notwithstanding the variety of
names, of rites, and of opinions, all the sects, and all the nations of
mankind, are united in the worship of the common Father and Creator of the
universe.
But the counsels of princes are more frequently influenced by views of
temporal advantage, than by considerations of abstract and speculative
truth. The partial and increasing favor of Constantine may naturally be
referred to the esteem which he entertained for the moral character of the
Christians; and to a persuasion, that the propagation of the gospel would
inculcate the practice of private and public virtue. Whatever latitude an
absolute monarch may assume in his own conduct, whatever indulgence he may
claim for his own passions, it is undoubtedly his interest that all his
subjects should respect the natural and civil obligations of society. But
the operation of the wisest laws is imperfect and precarious. They seldom
inspire virtue, they cannot always restrain vice. Their power is
insufficient to prohibit all that they condemn, nor can they always punish
the actions which they prohibit. The legislators of antiquity had summoned
to their aid the powers of education and of opinion. But every principle
which had once maintained the vigor and purity of Rome and Sparta, was
long since extinguished in a declining and despotic empire. Philosophy
still exercised her temperate sway over the human mind, but the cause of
virtue derived very feeble support from the influence of the Pagan
superstition. Under these discouraging circumstances, a prudent magistrate
might observe with pleasure the progress of a religion which diffused
among the people a pure, benevolent, and universal system of ethics,
adapted to every duty and every condition of life; recommended as the will
and reason of the supreme Deity, and enforced by the sanction of eternal
rewards or punishments. The experience of Greek and Roman history could
not inform the world how far the system of national manners might be
reformed and improved by the precepts of a divine revelation; and
Constantine might listen with some confidence to the flattering, and
indeed reasonable, assurances of Lactantius. The eloquent apologist seemed
firmly to expect, and almost ventured to promise, that
the establishment of Christianity would restore the innocence and felicity
of the primitive age; that the worship of the
true God would extinguish war and dissension among those who mutually
considered themselves as the children of a common parent; that
every impure desire, every angry or selfish passion, would be restrained
by the knowledge of the gospel; and that the
magistrates might sheath the sword of justice among a people who would be
universally actuated by the sentiments of truth and piety, of equity and
moderation, of harmony and universal love.
The passive and unresisting obedience, which bows under the yoke of
authority, or even of oppression, must have appeared, in the eyes of an
absolute monarch, the most conspicuous and useful of the evangelic
virtues. The primitive Christians derived the institution of civil
government, not from the consent of the people, but from the decrees of
Heaven. The reigning emperor, though he had usurped the sceptre by treason
and murder, immediately assumed the sacred character of vicegerent of the
Deity. To the Deity alone he was accountable for the abuse of his power;
and his subjects were indissolubly bound, by their oath of fidelity, to a
tyrant, who had violated every law of nature and society. The humble
Christians were sent into the world as sheep among wolves; and since they
were not permitted to employ force even in the defence of their religion,
they should be still more criminal if they were tempted to shed the blood
of their fellow-creatures in disputing the vain privileges, or the sordid
possessions, of this transitory life. Faithful to the doctrine of the
apostle, who in the reign of Nero had preached the duty of unconditional
submission, the Christians of the three first centuries preserved their
conscience pure and innocent of the guilt of secret conspiracy, or open
rebellion. While they experienced the rigor of persecution, they were
never provoked either to meet their tyrants in the field, or indignantly
to withdraw themselves into some remote and sequestered corner of the
globe. The Protestants of France, of Germany, and of Britain, who asserted
with such intrepid courage their civil and religious freedom, have been
insulted by the invidious comparison between the conduct of the primitive
and of the reformed Christians. Perhaps, instead of censure, some applause
may be due to the superior sense and spirit of our ancestors, who had
convinced themselves that religion cannot abolish the unalienable rights
of human nature. Perhaps the patience of the primitive church may be
ascribed to its weakness, as well as to its virtue. A sect of unwarlike
plebeians, without leaders, without arms, without fortifications, must
have encountered inevitable destruction in a rash and fruitless resistance
to the master of the Roman legions. But the Christians, when they
deprecated the wrath of Diocletian, or solicited the favor of Constantine,
could allege, with truth and confidence, that they held the principle of
passive obedience, and that, in the space of three centuries, their
conduct had always been conformable to their principles. They might add,
that the throne of the emperors would be established on a fixed and
permanent basis, if all their subjects, embracing the Christian doctrine,
should learn to suffer and to obey.
In the general order of Providence, princes and tyrants are considered as
the ministers of Heaven, appointed to rule or to chastise the nations of
the earth. But sacred history affords many illustrious examples of the
more immediate interposition of the Deity in the government of his chosen
people. The sceptre and the sword were committed to the hands of Moses, of
Joshua, of Gideon, of David, of the Maccabees; the virtues of those heroes
were the motive or the effect of the divine favor, the success of their
arms was destined to achieve the deliverance or the triumph of the church.
If the judges of Isræl were occasional and temporary magistrates,
the kings of Judah derived from the royal unction of their great ancestor
an hereditary and indefeasible right, which could not be forfeited by
their own vices, nor recalled by the caprice of their subjects. The same
extraordinary providence, which was no longer confined to the Jewish
people, might elect Constantine and his family as the protectors of the
Christian world; and the devout Lactantius announces, in a prophetic tone,
the future glories of his long and universal reign. Galerius and Maximin,
Maxentius and Licinius, were the rivals who shared with the favorite of
heaven the provinces of the empire. The tragic deaths of Galerius and
Maximin soon gratified the resentment, and fulfilled the sanguine
expectations, of the Christians. The success of Constantine against
Maxentius and Licinius removed the two formidable competitors who still
opposed the triumph of the second David, and his cause might seem to claim
the peculiar interposition of Providence. The character of the Roman
tyrant disgraced the purple and human nature; and though the Christians
might enjoy his precarious favor, they were exposed, with the rest of his
subjects, to the effects of his wanton and capricious cruelty. The conduct
of Licinius soon betrayed the reluctance with which he had consented to
the wise and humane regulations of the edict of Milan. The convocation of
provincial synods was prohibited in his dominions; his Christian officers
were ignominiously dismissed; and if he avoided the guilt, or rather
danger, of a general persecution, his partial oppressions were rendered
still more odious by the violation of a solemn and voluntary engagement.
While the East, according to the lively expression of Eusebius, was
involved in the shades of infernal darkness, the auspicious rays of
celestial light warmed and illuminated the provinces of the West. The
piety of Constantine was admitted as an unexceptionable proof of the
justice of his arms; and his use of victory confirmed the opinion of the
Christians, that their hero was inspired, and conducted, by the Lord of
Hosts. The conquest of Italy produced a general edict of toleration; and
as soon as the defeat of Licinius had invested Constantine with the sole
dominion of the Roman world, he immediately, by circular letters, exhorted
all his subjects to imitate, without delay, the example of their
sovereign, and to embrace the divine truth of Christianity.
The assurance that the elevation of Constantine was intimately connected
with the designs of Providence, instilled into the minds of the Christians
two opinions, which, by very different means, assisted the accomplishment
of the prophecy. Their warm and active loyalty exhausted in his favor
every resource of human industry; and they confidently expected that their
strenuous efforts would be seconded by some divine and miraculous aid. The
enemies of Constantine have imputed to interested motives the alliance
which he insensibly contracted with the Catholic church, and which
apparently contributed to the success of his ambition. In the beginning of
the fourth century, the Christians still bore a very inadequate proportion
to the inhabitants of the empire; but among a degenerate people, who
viewed the change of masters with the indifference of slaves, the spirit
and union of a religious party might assist the popular leader, to whose
service, from a principle of conscience, they had devoted their lives and
fortunes. The example of his father had instructed Constantine to esteem
and to reward the merit of the Christians; and in the distribution of
public offices, he had the advantage of strengthening his government, by
the choice of ministers or generals, in whose fidelity he could repose a
just and unreserved confidence. By the influence of these dignified
missionaries, the proselytes of the new faith must have multiplied in the
court and army; the Barbarians of Germany, who filled the ranks of the
legions, were of a careless temper, which acquiesced without resistance in
the religion of their commander; and when they passed the Alps, it may
fairly be presumed, that a great number of the soldiers had already
consecrated their swords to the service of Christ and of Constantine. The
habits of mankind and the interests of religion gradually abated the
horror of war and bloodshed, which had so long prevailed among the
Christians; and in the councils which were assembled under the gracious
protection of Constantine, the authority of the bishops was seasonably
employed to ratify the obligation of the military oath, and to inflict the
penalty of excommunication on those soldiers who threw away their arms
during the peace of the church. While Constantine, in his own dominions,
increased the number and zeal of his faithful adherents, he could depend
on the support of a powerful faction in those provinces which were still
possessed or usurped by his rivals. A secret disaffection was diffused
among the Christian subjects of Maxentius and Licinius; and the
resentment, which the latter did not attempt to conceal, served only to
engage them still more deeply in the interest of his competitor. The
regular correspondence which connected the bishops of the most distant
provinces, enabled them freely to communicate their wishes and their
designs, and to transmit without danger any useful intelligence, or any
pious contributions, which might promote the service of Constantine, who
publicly declared that he had taken up arms for the deliverance of the
church.
The enthusiasm which inspired the troops, and perhaps the emperor himself,
had sharpened their swords while it satisfied their conscience. They
marched to battle with the full assurance, that the same God, who had
formerly opened a passage to the Isrælites through the waters of
Jordan, and had thrown down the walls of Jericho at the sound of the
trumpets of Joshua, would display his visible majesty and power in the
victory of Constantine. The evidence of ecclesiastical history is prepared
to affirm, that their expectations were justified by the conspicuous
miracle to which the conversion of the first Christian emperor has been
almost unanimously ascribed. The real or imaginary cause of so important
an event, deserves and demands the attention of posterity; and I shall
endeavor to form a just estimate of the famous vision of Constantine, by a
distinct consideration of the standard, the
dream, and the celestial sign;
by separating the historical, the natural, and the marvellous parts of
this extraordinary story, which, in the composition of a specious
argument, have been artfully confounded in one splendid and brittle mass.
I. An instrument of the tortures which were inflicted only on slaves and
strangers, became on object of horror in the eyes of a Roman citizen; and
the ideas of guilt, of pain, and of ignominy, were closely united with the
idea of the cross. The piety, rather than the humanity, of Constantine
soon abolished in his dominions the punishment which the Savior of mankind
had condescended to suffer; but the emperor had already learned to despise
the prejudices of his education, and of his people, before he could erect
in the midst of Rome his own statue, bearing a cross in its right hand;
with an inscription which referred the victory of his arms, and the
deliverance of Rome, to the virtue of that salutary sign, the true symbol
of force and courage. The same symbol sanctified the arms of the soldiers
of Constantine; the cross glittered on their helmet, was engraved on their
shields, was interwoven into their banners; and the consecrated emblems
which adorned the person of the emperor himself, were distinguished only
by richer materials and more exquisite workmanship. But the principal
standard which displayed the triumph of the cross was styled the Labarum,
an obscure, though celebrated name, which has been vainly derived from
almost all the languages of the world. It is described as a long pike
intersected by a transversal beam. The silken veil, which hung down from
the beam, was curiously inwrought with the images of the reigning monarch
and his children. The summit of the pike supported a crown of gold which
enclosed the mysterious monogram, at once expressive of the figure of the
cross, and the initial letters, of the name of Christ. The safety of the
labarum was intrusted to fifty guards, of approved valor and fidelity;
their station was marked by honors and emoluments; and some fortunate
accidents soon introduced an opinion, that as long as the guards of the
labarum were engaged in the execution of their office, they were secure
and invulnerable amidst the darts of the enemy. In the second civil war,
Licinius felt and dreaded the power of this consecrated banner, the sight
of which, in the distress of battle, animated the soldiers of Constantine
with an invincible enthusiasm, and scattered terror and dismay through the
ranks of the adverse legions. The Christian emperors, who respected the
example of Constantine, displayed in all their military expeditions the
standard of the cross; but when the degenerate successors of Theodosius
had ceased to appear in person at the head of their armies, the labarum
was deposited as a venerable but useless relic in the palace of
Constantinople. Its honors are still preserved on the medals of the
Flavian family. Their grateful devotion has placed the monogram of Christ
in the midst of the ensigns of Rome. The solemn epithets of, safety of the
republic, glory of the army, restoration of public happiness, are equally
applied to the religious and military trophies; and there is still extant
a medal of the emperor Constantius, where the standard of the labarum is
accompanied with these memorable words, By This Sign Thou Shalt Conquer.
II. In all occasions of danger and distress, it was the practice of the
primitive Christians to fortify their minds and bodies by the sign of the
cross, which they used, in all their ecclesiastical rites, in all the
daily occurrences of life, as an infallible preservative against every
species of spiritual or temporal evil. The authority of the church might
alone have had sufficient weight to justify the devotion of Constantine,
who in the same prudent and gradual progress acknowledged the truth, and
assumed the symbol, of Christianity. But the testimony of a contemporary
writer, who in a formal treatise has avenged the cause of religion,
bestows on the piety of the emperor a more awful and sublime character. He
affirms, with the most perfect confidence, that in the night which
preceded the last battle against Maxentius, Constantine was admonished in
a dream * to inscribe the shields of his soldiers with the celestial
sign of God, the sacred monogram of the name of Christ; that
he executed the commands of Heaven, and that his valor and obedience were
rewarded by the decisive victory of the Milvian Bridge. Some
considerations might perhaps incline a sceptical mind to suspect the
judgment or the veracity of the rhetorician, whose pen, either from zeal
or interest, was devoted to the cause of the prevailing faction. He
appears to have published his deaths of the persecutors at Nicomedia about
three years after the Roman victory; but the interval of a thousand miles,
and a thousand days, will allow an ample latitude for the invention of
declaimers, the credulity of party, and the tacit approbation of the
emperor himself who might listen without indignation to a marvellous tale,
which exalted his fame, and promoted his designs. In favor of Licinius,
who still dissembled his animosity to the Christians, the same author has
provided a similar vision, of a form of prayer, which was communicated by
an angel, and repeated by the whole army before they engaged the legions
of the tyrant Maximin. The frequent repetition of miracles serves to
provoke, where it does not subdue, the reason of mankind; but if the dream
of Constantine is separately considered, it may be naturally explained
either by the policy or the enthusiasm of the emperor. Whilst his anxiety
for the approaching day, which must decide the fate of the empire, was
suspended by a short and interrupted slumber, the venerable form of
Christ, and the well-known symbol of his religion, might forcibly offer
themselves to the active fancy of a prince who reverenced the name, and
had perhaps secretly implored the power, of the God of the Christians. As
readily might a consummate statesman indulge himself in the use of one of
those military stratagems, one of those pious frauds, which Philip and
Sertorius had employed with such art and effect. The præternatural
origin of dreams was universally admitted by the nations of antiquity, and
a considerable part of the Gallic army was already prepared to place their
confidence in the salutary sign of the Christian religion. The secret
vision of Constantine could be disproved only by the event; and the
intrepid hero who had passed the Alps and the Apennine, might view with
careless despair the consequences of a defeat under the walls of Rome. The
senate and people, exulting in their own deliverance from an odious
tyrant, acknowledged that the victory of Constantine surpassed the powers
of man, without daring to insinuate that it had been obtained by the
protection of the Gods. The triumphal arch,
which was erected about three years after the event, proclaims, in
ambiguous language, that by the greatness of his own mind, and by an
instinct or impulse of the Divinity, he had
saved and avenged the Roman republic. The Pagan orator, who had seized an
earlier opportunity of celebrating the virtues of the conqueror, supposes
that he alone enjoyed a secret and intimate commerce with the Supreme
Being, who delegated the care of mortals to his subordinate deities; and
thus assigns a very plausible reason why the subjects of Constantine
should not presume to embrace the new religion of their sovereign.
III. The philosopher, who with calm suspicion examines the dreams and
omens, the miracles and prodigies, of profane or even of ecclesiastical
history, will probably conclude, that if the eyes of the spectators have
sometimes been deceived by fraud, the understanding of the readers has
much more frequently been insulted by fiction. Every event, or appearance,
or accident, which seems to deviate from the ordinary course of nature,
has been rashly ascribed to the immediate action of the Deity; and the
astonished fancy of the multitude has sometimes given shape and color,
language and motion, to the fleeting but uncommon meteors of the air.
Nazarius and Eusebius are the two most celebrated orators, who, in studied
panegyrics, have labored to exalt the glory of Constantine. Nine years
after the Roman victory, Nazarius describes an army of divine warriors,
who seemed to fall from the sky: he marks their beauty, their spirit,
their gigantic forms, the stream of light which beamed from their
celestial armor, their patience in suffering themselves to be heard, as
well as seen, by mortals; and their declaration that they were sent, that
they flew, to the assistance of the great Constantine. For the truth of
this prodigy, the Pagan orator appeals to the whole Gallic nation, in
whose presence he was then speaking; and seems to hope that the ancient
apparitions would now obtain credit from this recent and public event. The
Christian fable of Eusebius, which, in the space of twenty-six years,
might arise from the original dream, is cast in a much more correct and
elegant mould. In one of the marches of Constantine, he is reported to
have seen with his own eyes the luminous trophy of the cross, placed above
the meridian sun and inscribed with the following words: By This Conquer.
This amazing object in the sky astonished the whole army, as well as the
emperor himself, who was yet undetermined in the choice of a religion: but
his astonishment was converted into faith by the vision of the ensuing
night. Christ appeared before his eyes; and displaying the same celestial
sign of the cross, he directed Constantine to frame a similar standard,
and to march, with an assurance of victory, against Maxentius and all his
enemies. The learned bishop of Cæsarea appears to be sensible, that
the recent discovery of this marvellous anecdote would excite some
surprise and distrust among the most pious of his readers. Yet, instead of
ascertaining the precise circumstances of time and place, which always
serve to detect falsehood or establish truth; instead of collecting and
recording the evidence of so many living witnesses who must have been
spectators of this stupendous miracle; Eusebius contents himself with
alleging a very singular testimony; that of the deceased Constantine, who,
many years after the event, in the freedom of conversation, had related to
him this extraordinary incident of his own life, and had attested the
truth of it by a solemn oath. The prudence and gratitude of the learned
prelate forbade him to suspect the veracity of his victorious master; but
he plainly intimates, that in a fact of such a nature, he should have
refused his assent to any meaner authority. This motive of credibility
could not survive the power of the Flavian family; and the celestial sign,
which the Infidels might afterwards deride, was disregarded by the
Christians of the age which immediately followed the conversion of
Constantine. But the Catholic church, both of the East and of the West,
has adopted a prodigy which favors, or seems to favor, the popular worship
of the cross. The vision of Constantine maintained an honorable place in
the legend of superstition, till the bold and sagacious spirit of
criticism presumed to depreciate the triumph, and to arraign the truth, of
the first Christian emperor.
The Protestant and philosophic readers of the present age will incline to
believe, that in the account of his own conversion, Constantine attested a
wilful falsehood by a solemn and deliberate perjury. They may not hesitate
to pronounce, that in the choice of a religion, his mind was determined
only by a sense of interest; and that (according to the expression of a
profane poet ) he used the altars of the church as a convenient footstool
to the throne of the empire. A conclusion so harsh and so absolute is not,
however, warranted by our knowledge of human nature, of Constantine, or of
Christianity. In an age of religious fervor, the most artful statesmen are
observed to feel some part of the enthusiasm which they inspire, and the
most orthodox saints assume the dangerous privilege of defending the cause
of truth by the arms of deceit and falsehood. Personal interest is often
the standard of our belief, as well as of our practice; and the same
motives of temporal advantage which might influence the public conduct and
professions of Constantine, would insensibly dispose his mind to embrace a
religion so propitious to his fame and fortunes. His vanity was gratified
by the flattering assurance, that he had been
chosen by Heaven to reign over the earth; success had justified his divine
title to the throne, and that title was founded on the truth of the
Christian revelation. As real virtue is sometimes excited by undeserved
applause, the specious piety of Constantine, if at first it was only
specious, might gradually, by the influence of praise, of habit, and of
example, be matured into serious faith and fervent devotion. The bishops
and teachers of the new sect, whose dress and manners had not qualified
them for the residence of a court, were admitted to the Imperial table;
they accompanied the monarch in his expeditions; and the ascendant which
one of them, an Egyptian or a Spaniard, acquired over his mind, was
imputed by the Pagans to the effect of magic. Lactantius, who has adorned
the precepts of the gospel with the eloquence of Cicero, and Eusebius, who
has consecrated the learning and philosophy of the Greeks to the service
of religion, were both received into the friendship and familiarity of
their sovereign; and those able masters of controversy could patiently
watch the soft and yielding moments of persuasion, and dexterously apply
the arguments which were the best adapted to his character and
understanding. Whatever advantages might be derived from the acquisition
of an Imperial proselyte, he was distinguished by the splendor of his
purple, rather than by the superiority of wisdom, or virtue, from the many
thousands of his subjects who had embraced the doctrines of Christianity.
Nor can it be deemed incredible, that the mind of an unlettered soldier
should have yielded to the weight of evidence, which, in a more
enlightened age, has satisfied or subdued the reason of a Grotius, a
Pascal, or a Locke. In the midst of the incessant labors of his great
office, this soldier employed, or affected to employ, the hours of the
night in the diligent study of the Scriptures, and the composition of
theological discourses; which he afterwards pronounced in the presence of
a numerous and applauding audience. In a very long discourse, which is
still extant, the royal preacher expatiates on the various proofs still
extant, the royal preacher expatiates on the various proofs of religion;
but he dwells with peculiar complacency on the Sibylline verses, and the
fourth eclogue of Virgil. Forty years before the birth of Christ, the
Mantuan bard, as if inspired by the celestial muse of Isaiah, had
celebrated, with all the pomp of oriental metaphor, the return of the
Virgin, the fall of the serpent, the approaching birth of a godlike child,
the offspring of the great Jupiter, who should expiate the guilt of human
kind, and govern the peaceful universe with the virtues of his father; the
rise and appearance of a heavenly race, primitive nation throughout the
world; and the gradual restoration of the innocence and felicity of the
golden age. The poet was perhaps unconscious of the secret sense and
object of these sublime predictions, which have been so unworthily applied
to the infant son of a consul, or a triumvir; but if a more splendid, and
indeed specious interpretation of the fourth eclogue contributed to the
conversion of the first Christian emperor, Virgil may deserve to be ranked
among the most successful missionaries of the gospel.
The awful mysteries of the Christian faith and worship were concealed from
the eyes of strangers, and even of catechumens, with an affected secrecy,
which served to excite their wonder and curiosity. But the severe rules of
discipline which the prudence of the bishops had instituted, were relaxed
by the same prudence in favor of an Imperial proselyte, whom it was so
important to allure, by every gentle condescension, into the pale of the
church; and Constantine was permitted, at least by a tacit dispensation,
to enjoy most of the privileges, before he had
contracted any of the obligations, of a
Christian. Instead of retiring from the congregation, when the voice of
the deacon dismissed the profane multitude, he prayed with the faithful,
disputed with the bishops, preached on the most sublime and intricate
subjects of theology, celebrated with sacred rites the vigil of Easter,
and publicly declared himself, not only a partaker, but, in some measure,
a priest and hierophant of the Christian mysteries. The pride of
Constantine might assume, and his services had deserved, some
extraordinary distinction: and ill-timed rigor might have blasted the
unripened fruits of his conversion; and if the doors of the church had
been strictly closed against a prince who had deserted the altars of the
gods, the master of the empire would have been left destitute of any form
of religious worship. In his last visit to Rome, he piously disclaimed and
insulted the superstition of his ancestors, by refusing to lead the
military procession of the equestrian order, and to offer the public vows
to the Jupiter of the Capitoline Hill. Many years before his baptism and
death, Constantine had proclaimed to the world, that neither his person
nor his image should ever more be seen within the walls of an idolatrous
temple; while he distributed through the provinces a variety of medals and
pictures, which represented the emperor in an humble and suppliant posture
of Christian devotion.
The pride of Constantine, who refused the privileges of a catechumen,
cannot easily be explained or excused; but the delay of his baptism may be
justified by the maxims and the practice of ecclesiastical antiquity. The
sacrament of baptism was regularly administered by the bishop himself,
with his assistant clergy, in the cathedral church of the diocese, during
the fifty days between the solemn festivals of Easter and Pentecost; and
this holy term admitted a numerous band of infants and adult persons into
the bosom of the church. The discretion of parents often suspended the
baptism of their children till they could understand the obligations which
they contracted: the severity of ancient bishops exacted from the new
converts a novitiate of two or three years; and the catechumens
themselves, from different motives of a temporal or a spiritual nature,
were seldom impatient to assume the character of perfect and initiated
Christians. The sacrament of baptism was supposed to contain a full and
absolute expiation of sin; and the soul was instantly restored to its
original purity, and entitled to the promise of eternal salvation. Among
the proselytes of Christianity, there are many who judged it imprudent to
precipitate a salutary rite, which could not be repeated; to throw away an
inestimable privilege, which could never be recovered. By the delay of
their baptism, they could venture freely to indulge their passions in the
enjoyments of this world, while they still retained in their own hands the
means of a sure and easy absolution. The sublime theory of the gospel had
made a much fainter impression on the heart than on the understanding of
Constantine himself. He pursued the great object of his ambition through
the dark and bloody paths of war and policy; and, after the victory, he
abandoned himself, without moderation, to the abuse of his fortune.
Instead of asserting his just superiority above the imperfect heroism and
profane philosophy of Trajan and the Antonines, the mature age of
Constantine forfeited the reputation which he had acquired in his youth.
As he gradually advanced in the knowledge of truth, he proportionally
declined in the practice of virtue; and the same year of his reign in
which he convened the council of Nice, was polluted by the execution, or
rather murder, of his eldest son. This date is alone sufficient to refute
the ignorant and malicious suggestions of Zosimus, who affirms, that,
after the death of Crispus, the remorse of his father accepted from the
ministers of Christianity the expiation which he had vainly solicited from
the Pagan pontiffs. At the time of the death of Crispus, the emperor could
no longer hesitate in the choice of a religion; he could no longer be
ignorant that the church was possessed of an infallible remedy, though he
chose to defer the application of it till the approach of death had
removed the temptation and danger of a relapse. The bishops whom he
summoned, in his last illness, to the palace of Nicomedia, were edified by
the fervor with which he requested and received the sacrament of baptism,
by the solemn protestation that the remainder of his life should be worthy
of a disciple of Christ, and by his humble refusal to wear the Imperial
purple after he had been clothed in the white garment of a Neophyte. The
example and reputation of Constantine seemed to countenance the delay of
baptism. Future tyrants were encouraged to believe, that the innocent
blood which they might shed in a long reign would instantly be washed away
in the waters of regeneration; and the abuse of religion dangerously
undermined the foundations of moral virtue.
The gratitude of the church has exalted the virtues and excused the
failings of a generous patron, who seated Christianity on the throne of
the Roman world; and the Greeks, who celebrate the festival of the
Imperial saint, seldom mention the name of Constantine without adding the
title of equal to the Apostles. Such a
comparison, if it allude to the character of those divine missionaries,
must be imputed to the extravagance of impious flattery. But if the
parallel be confined to the extent and number of their evangelic victories
the success of Constantine might perhaps equal that of the Apostles
themselves. By the edicts of toleration, he removed the temporal
disadvantages which had hitherto retarded the progress of Christianity;
and its active and numerous ministers received a free permission, a
liberal encouragement, to recommend the salutary truths of revelation by
every argument which could affect the reason or piety of mankind. The
exact balance of the two religions continued but a moment; and the
piercing eye of ambition and avarice soon discovered, that the profession
of Christianity might contribute to the interest of the present, as well
as of a future life. The hopes of wealth and honors, the example of an
emperor, his exhortations, his irresistible smiles, diffused conviction
among the venal and obsequious crowds which usually fill the apartments of
a palace. The cities which signalized a forward zeal by the voluntary
destruction of their temples, were distinguished by municipal privileges,
and rewarded with popular donatives; and the new capital of the East
gloried in the singular advantage that Constantinople was never profaned
by the worship of idols. As the lower ranks of society are governed by
imitation, the conversion of those who possessed any eminence of birth, of
power, or of riches, was soon followed by dependent multitudes. The
salvation of the common people was purchased at an easy rate, if it be
true that, in one year, twelve thousand men were baptized at Rome, besides
a proportionable number of women and children, and that a white garment,
with twenty pieces of gold, had been promised by the emperor to every
convert. The powerful influence of Constantine was not circumscribed by
the narrow limits of his life, or of his dominions. The education which he
bestowed on his sons and nephews secured to the empire a race of princes,
whose faith was still more lively and sincere, as they imbibed, in their
earliest infancy, the spirit, or at least the doctrine, of Christianity.
War and commerce had spread the knowledge of the gospel beyond the
confines of the Roman provinces; and the Barbarians, who had disdained it as
a humble and proscribed sect, soon learned to esteem a religion which had
been so lately embraced by the greatest monarch, and the most civilized
nation, of the globe. The Goths and Germans, who enlisted under the
standard of Rome, revered the cross which glittered at the head of the
legions, and their fierce countrymen received at the same time the lessons
of faith and of humanity. The kings of Iberia and Armenia * worshipped the
god of their protector; and their subjects, who have invariably preserved
the name of Christians, soon formed a sacred and perpetual connection with
their Roman brethren. The Christians of Persia were suspected, in time of
war, of preferring their religion to their country; but as long as peace
subsisted between the two empires, the persecuting spirit of the Magi was
effectually restrained by the interposition of Constantine. The rays of
the gospel illuminated the coast of India. The colonies of Jews, who had
penetrated into Arabia and Ethiopia, opposed the progress of Christianity;
but the labor of the missionaries was in some measure facilitated by a
previous knowledge of the Mosaic revelation; and Abyssinia still reveres
the memory of Frumentius, * who, in the time of Constantine, devoted his
life to the conversion of those sequestered regions. Under the reign of
his son Constantius, Theophilus, who was himself of Indian extraction, was
invested with the double character of ambassador and bishop. He embarked
on the Red Sea with two hundred horses of the purest breed of Cappadocia,
which were sent by the emperor to the prince of the Sabæans, or
Homerites. Theophilus was intrusted with many other useful or curious
presents, which might raise the admiration, and conciliate the friendship,
of the Barbarians; and he successfully employed several years in a
pastoral visit to the churches of the torrid zone.
The irresistible power of the Roman emperors was displayed in the
important and dangerous change of the national religion. The terrors of a
military force silenced the faint and unsupported murmurs of the Pagans,
and there was reason to expect, that the cheerful submission of the
Christian clergy, as well as people, would be the result of conscience and
gratitude. It was long since established, as a fundamental maxim of the
Roman constitution, that every rank of citizens was alike subject to the
laws, and that the care of religion was the right as well as duty of the
civil magistrate. Constantine and his successors could not easily persuade
themselves that they had forfeited, by their conversion, any branch of the
Imperial prerogatives, or that they were incapable of giving laws to a
religion which they had protected and embraced. The emperors still
continued to exercise a supreme jurisdiction over the ecclesiastical
order, and the sixteenth book of the Theodosian code represents, under a
variety of titles, the authority which they assumed in the government of
the Catholic church.
But the distinction of the spiritual and temporal powers, which had never
been imposed on the free spirit of Greece and Rome, was introduced and
confirmed by the legal establishment of Christianity. The office of
supreme pontiff, which, from the time of Numa to that of Augustus, had
always been exercised by one of the most eminent of the senators, was at
length united to the Imperial dignity. The first magistrate of the state,
as often as he was prompted by superstition or policy, performed with his
own hands the sacerdotal functions; nor was there any order of priests,
either at Rome or in the provinces, who claimed a more sacred character
among men, or a more intimate communication with the gods. But in the
Christian church, which intrusts the service of the altar to a perpetual
succession of consecrated ministers, the monarch, whose spiritual rank is
less honorable than that of the meanest deacon, was seated below the rails
of the sanctuary, and confounded with the rest of the faithful multitude.
The emperor might be saluted as the father of his people, but he owed a
filial duty and reverence to the fathers of the church; and the same marks
of respect, which Constantine had paid to the persons of saints and
confessors, were soon exacted by the pride of the episcopal order. A
secret conflict between the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions
embarrassed the operation of the Roman government; and a pious emperor was
alarmed by the guilt and danger of touching with a profane hand the ark of
the covenant. The separation of men into the two orders of the clergy and
of the laity was, indeed, familiar to many nations of antiquity; and the
priests of India, of Persia, of Assyria, of Judea, of Æthiopia, of
Egypt, and of Gaul, derived from a celestial origin the temporal power and
possessions which they had acquired. These venerable institutions had
gradually assimilated themselves to the manners and government of their
respective countries; but the opposition or contempt of the civil power
served to cement the discipline of the primitive church. The Christians
had been obliged to elect their own magistrates, to raise and distribute a
peculiar revenue, and to regulate the internal policy of their republic by
a code of laws, which were ratified by the consent of the people and the
practice of three hundred years. When Constantine embraced the faith of
the Christians, he seemed to contract a perpetual alliance with a distinct
and independent society; and the privileges granted or confirmed by that
emperor, or by his successors, were accepted, not as the precarious favors
of the court, but as the just and inalienable rights of the ecclesiastical
order.
The Catholic church was administered by the spiritual and legal
jurisdiction of eighteen hundred bishops; of whom one thousand were seated
in the Greek, and eight hundred in the Latin, provinces of the empire. The
extent and boundaries of their respective dioceses had been variously and
accidentally decided by the zeal and success of the first missionaries, by
the wishes of the people, and by the propagation of the gospel. Episcopal
churches were closely planted along the banks of the Nile, on the
sea-coast of Africa, in the proconsular Asia, and through the southern
provinces of Italy. The bishops of Gaul and Spain, of Thrace and Pontus,
reigned over an ample territory, and delegated their rural suffragans to
execute the subordinate duties of the pastoral office. A Christian diocese
might be spread over a province, or reduced to a village; but all the
bishops possessed an equal and indelible character: they all derived the
same powers and privileges from the apostles, from the people, and from
the laws. While the civil and military
professions were separated by the policy of Constantine, a new and
perpetual order of ecclesiastical ministers,
always respectable, sometimes dangerous, was established in the church and
state. The important review of their station and attributes may be
distributed under the following heads: I. Popular Election. II. Ordination
of the Clergy. III. Property. IV. Civil Jurisdiction. V. Spiritual
censures. VI. Exercise of public oratory. VII. Privilege of legislative
assemblies.
I. The freedom of election subsisted long after the legal establishment of
Christianity; and the subjects of Rome enjoyed in the church the privilege
which they had lost in the republic, of choosing the magistrates whom they
were bound to obey. As soon as a bishop had closed his eyes, the
metropolitan issued a commission to one of his suffragans to administer
the vacant see, and prepare, within a limited time, the future election.
The right of voting was vested in the inferior clergy, who were best
qualified to judge of the merit of the candidates; in the senators or
nobles of the city, all those who were distinguished by their rank or
property; and finally in the whole body of the people, who, on the
appointed day, flocked in multitudes from the most remote parts of the
diocese, and sometimes silenced by their tumultuous acclamations, the
voice of reason and the laws of discipline. These acclamations might
accidentally fix on the head of the most deserving competitor; of some
ancient presbyter, some holy monk, or some layman, conspicuous for his
zeal and piety. But the episcopal chair was solicited, especially in the
great and opulent cities of the empire, as a temporal rather than as a
spiritual dignity. The interested views, the selfish and angry passions,
the arts of perfidy and dissimulation, the secret corruption, the open and
even bloody violence which had formerly disgraced the freedom of election
in the commonwealths of Greece and Rome, too often influenced the choice
of the successors of the apostles. While one of the candidates boasted the
honors of his family, a second allured his judges by the delicacies of a
plentiful table, and a third, more guilty than his rivals, offered to
share the plunder of the church among the accomplices of his sacrilegious
hopes. The civil as well as ecclesiastical laws attempted to exclude the
populace from this solemn and important transaction. The canons of ancient
discipline, by requiring several episcopal qualifications, of age,
station, &c., restrained, in some measure, the indiscriminate caprice
of the electors. The authority of the provincial bishops, who were
assembled in the vacant church to consecrate the choice of the people, was
interposed to moderate their passions and to correct their mistakes. The
bishops could refuse to ordain an unworthy candidate, and the rage of
contending factions sometimes accepted their impartial mediation. The
submission, or the resistance, of the clergy and people, on various
occasions, afforded different precedents, which were insensibly converted
into positive laws and provincial customs; but it was every where
admitted, as a fundamental maxim of religious policy, that no bishop could
be imposed on an orthodox church, without the consent of its members. The
emperors, as the guardians of the public peace, and as the first citizens
of Rome and Constantinople, might effectually declare their wishes in the
choice of a primate; but those absolute monarchs respected the freedom of
ecclesiastical elections; and while they distributed and resumed the
honors of the state and army, they allowed eighteen hundred perpetual
magistrates to receive their important offices from the free suffrages of
the people. It was agreeable to the dictates of justice, that these
magistrates should not desert an honorable station from which they could
not be removed; but the wisdom of councils endeavored, without much
success, to enforce the residence, and to prevent the translation, of
bishops. The discipline of the West was indeed less relaxed than that of
the East; but the same passions which made those regulations necessary,
rendered them ineffectual. The reproaches which angry prelates have so
vehemently urged against each other, serve only to expose their common
guilt, and their mutual indiscretion.
II. The bishops alone possessed the faculty of spiritual generation: and
this extraordinary privilege might compensate, in some degree, for the
painful celibacy which was imposed as a virtue, as a duty, and at length
as a positive obligation. The religions of antiquity, which established a
separate order of priests, dedicated a holy race, a tribe or family, to
the perpetual service of the gods. Such institutions were founded for
possession, rather than conquest. The children of the priests enjoyed,
with proud and indolent security, their sacred inheritance; and the fiery
spirit of enthusiasm was abated by the cares, the pleasures, and the
endearments of domestic life. But the Christian sanctuary was open to
every ambitious candidate, who aspired to its heavenly promises or
temporal possessions. This office of priests, like that of soldiers or
magistrates, was strenuously exercised by those men, whose temper and
abilities had prompted them to embrace the ecclesiastical profession, or
who had been selected by a discerning bishop, as the best qualified to
promote the glory and interest of the church. The bishops (till the abuse
was restrained by the prudence of the laws) might constrain the reluctant,
and protect the distressed; and the imposition of hands forever bestowed
some of the most valuable privileges of civil society. The whole body of
the Catholic clergy, more numerous perhaps than the legions, was exempted
* by the emperors from all service, private or public, all municipal
offices, and all personal taxes and contributions, which pressed on their
fellow-citizens with intolerable weight; and the duties of their holy
profession were accepted as a full discharge of their obligations to the
republic. Each bishop acquired an absolute and indefeasible right to the
perpetual obedience of the clerk whom he ordained: the clergy of each
episcopal church, with its dependent parishes, formed a regular and
permanent society; and the cathedrals of Constantinople and Carthage
maintained their peculiar establishment of five hundred ecclesiastical
ministers. Their ranks and numbers were insensibly multiplied by the
superstition of the times, which introduced into the church the splendid
ceremonies of a Jewish or Pagan temple; and a long train of priests,
deacons, sub-deacons, acolythes, exorcists, readers, singers, and
doorkeepers, contributed, in their respective stations, to swell the pomp
and harmony of religious worship. The clerical name and privileges were
extended to many pious fraternities, who devoutly supported the
ecclesiastical throne. Six hundred parabolani,
or adventurers, visited the sick at Alexandria; eleven hundred copiat,
or grave-diggers, buried the dead at Constantinople; and the swarms of
monks, who arose from the Nile, overspread and darkened the face of the
Christian world.
III. The edict of Milan secured the revenue as well as the peace of the
church. The Christians not only recovered the lands and houses of which
they had been stripped by the persecuting laws of Diocletian, but they
acquired a perfect title to all the possessions which they had hitherto
enjoyed by the connivance of the magistrate. As soon as Christianity
became the religion of the emperor and the empire, the national clergy
might claim a decent and honorable maintenance; and the payment of an
annual tax might have delivered the people from the more oppressive
tribute, which superstition imposes on her votaries. But as the wants and
expenses of the church increased with her prosperity, the ecclesiastical
order was still supported and enriched by the voluntary oblations of the
faithful. Eight years after the edict of Milan, Constantine granted to all
his subjects the free and universal permission of bequeathing their
fortunes to the holy Catholic church; and their devout liberality, which
during their lives was checked by luxury or avarice, flowed with a profuse
stream at the hour of their death. The wealthy Christians were encouraged
by the example of their sovereign. An absolute monarch, who is rich
without patrimony, may be charitable without merit; and Constantine too
easily believed that he should purchase the favor of Heaven, if he
maintained the idle at the expense of the industrious; and distributed
among the saints the wealth of the republic. The same messenger who
carried over to Africa the head of Maxentius, might be intrusted with an
epistle to Cæcilian, bishop of Carthage. The emperor acquaints him,
that the treasurers of the province are directed to pay into his hands the
sum of three thousand folles, or eighteen
thousand pounds sterling, and to obey his further requisitions for the
relief of the churches of Africa, Numidia, and Mauritania. The liberality
of Constantine increased in a just proportion to his faith, and to his
vices. He assigned in each city a regular allowance of corn, to supply the
fund of ecclesiastical charity; and the persons of both sexes who embraced
the monastic life became the peculiar favorites of their sovereign. The
Christian temples of Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Constantinople &c.,
displayed the ostentatious piety of a prince, ambitious in a declining age
to equal the perfect labors of antiquity. The form of these religious
edifices was simple and oblong; though they might sometimes swell into the
shape of a dome, and sometimes branch into the figure of a cross. The
timbers were framed for the most part of cedars of Libanus; the roof was
covered with tiles, perhaps of gilt brass; and the walls, the columns, the
pavement, were encrusted with variegated marbles. The most precious
ornaments of gold and silver, of silk and gems, were profusely dedicated
to the service of the altar; and this specious magnificence was supported
on the solid and perpetual basis of landed property. In the space of two
centuries, from the reign of Constantine to that of Justinian, the
eighteen hundred churches of the empire were enriched by the frequent and
unalienable gifts of the prince and people. An annual income of six
hundred pounds sterling may be reasonably assigned to the bishops, who
were placed at an equal distance between riches and poverty, but the
standard of their wealth insensibly rose with the dignity and opulence of
the cities which they governed. An authentic but imperfect rent-roll
specifies some houses, shops, gardens, and farms, which belonged to the
three Basilic of Rome, St. Peter, St. Paul, and
St. John Lateran, in the provinces of Italy, Africa, and the East. They
produce, besides a reserved rent of oil, linen, paper, aromatics, &c.,
a clear annual revenue of twenty-two thousand pieces of gold, or twelve
thousand pounds sterling. In the age of Constantine and Justinian, the
bishops no longer possessed, perhaps they no longer deserved, the
unsuspecting confidence of their clergy and people. The ecclesiastical
revenues of each diocese were divided into four parts for the respective
uses of the bishop himself, of his inferior clergy, of the poor, and of
the public worship; and the abuse of this sacred trust was strictly and
repeatedly checked. The patrimony of the church was still subject to all
the public compositions of the state. The clergy of Rome, Alexandria,
Thessalonica, &c., might solicit and obtain some partial exemptions;
but the premature attempt of the great council of Rimini, which aspired to
universal freedom, was successfully resisted by the son of Constantine.
IV. The Latin clergy, who erected their tribunal on the ruins of the civil
and common law, have modestly accepted, as the gift of Constantine, the
independent jurisdiction, which was the fruit of time, of accident, and of
their own industry. But the liberality of the Christian emperors had
actually endowed them with some legal prerogatives, which secured and
dignified the sacerdotal character. 1. Under a despotic
government, the bishops alone enjoyed and asserted the inestimable
privilege of being tried only by their peers;
and even in a capital accusation, a synod of their brethren were the sole
judges of their guilt or innocence. Such a tribunal, unless it was
inflamed by personal resentment or religious discord, might be favorable,
or even partial, to the sacerdotal order: but Constantine was satisfied,
that secret impunity would be less pernicious than public scandal: and the
Nicene council was edited by his public declaration, that if he surprised
a bishop in the act of adultery, he should cast his Imperial mantle over
the episcopal sinner. 2. The domestic jurisdiction of the
bishops was at once a privilege and a restraint of the ecclesiastical
order, whose civil causes were decently withdrawn from the cognizance of a
secular judge. Their venial offences were not exposed to the shame of a
public trial or punishment; and the gentle correction which the tenderness
of youth may endure from its parents or instructors, was inflicted by the
temperate severity of the bishops. But if the clergy were guilty of any
crime which could not be sufficiently expiated by their degradation from
an honorable and beneficial profession, the Roman magistrate drew the
sword of justice, without any regard to ecclesiastical immunities. 3.
The arbitration of the bishops was ratified by a positive law; and the
judges were instructed to execute, without appeal or delay, the episcopal
decrees, whose validity had hitherto depended on the consent of the
parties. The conversion of the magistrates themselves, and of the whole
empire, might gradually remove the fears and scruples of the Christians.
But they still resorted to the tribunal of the bishops, whose abilities
and integrity they esteemed; and the venerable Austin enjoyed the
satisfaction of complaining that his spiritual functions were perpetually
interrupted by the invidious labor of deciding the claim or the possession
of silver and gold, of lands and cattle. 4. The ancient
privilege of sanctuary was transferred to the Christian temples, and
extended, by the liberal piety of the younger Theodosius, to the precincts
of consecrated ground. The fugitive, and even guilty, suppliants were
permitted to implore either the justice, or the mercy, of the Deity and
his ministers. The rash violence of despotism was suspended by the mild
interposition of the church; and the lives or fortunes of the most eminent
subjects might be protected by the mediation of the bishop.
V. The bishop was the perpetual censor of the morals of his people The
discipline of penance was digested into a system of canonical
jurisprudence, which accurately defined the duty of private or public
confession, the rules of evidence, the degrees of guilt, and the measure
of punishment. It was impossible to execute this spiritual censure, if the
Christian pontiff, who punished the obscure sins of the multitude,
respected the conspicuous vices and destructive crimes of the magistrate:
but it was impossible to arraign the conduct of the magistrate, without,
controlling the administration of civil government. Some considerations of
religion, or loyalty, or fear, protected the sacred persons of the
emperors from the zeal or resentment of the bishops; but they boldly
censured and excommunicated the subordinate tyrants, who were not invested
with the majesty of the purple. St. Athanasius excommunicated one of the
ministers of Egypt; and the interdict which he pronounced, of fire and
water, was solemnly transmitted to the churches of Cappadocia. Under the
reign of the younger Theodosius, the polite and eloquent Synesius, one of
the descendants of Hercules, filled the episcopal seat of Ptolemais, near
the ruins of ancient Cyrene, and the philosophic bishop supported with
dignity the character which he had assumed with reluctance. He vanquished
the monster of Libya, the president Andronicus, who abused the authority
of a venal office, invented new modes of rapine and torture, and
aggravated the guilt of oppression by that of sacrilege. After a fruitless
attempt to reclaim the haughty magistrate by mild and religious
admonition, Synesius proceeds to inflict the last sentence of
ecclesiastical justice, which devotes Andronicus, with his associates and
their families, to the abhorrence of earth and
heaven. The impenitent sinners, more cruel than Phalaris or Sennacherib,
more destructive than war, pestilence, or a cloud of locusts, are deprived
of the name and privileges of Christians, of the participation of the
sacraments, and of the hope of Paradise. The bishop exhorts the clergy,
the magistrates, and the people, to renounce all society with the enemies
of Christ; to exclude them from their houses and tables; and to refuse
them the common offices of life, and the decent rites of burial. The
church of Ptolemais, obscure and contemptible as she may appear, addresses
this declaration to all her sister churches of the world; and the profane
who reject her decrees, will be involved in the guilt and punishment of
Andronicus and his impious followers. These spiritual terrors were
enforced by a dexterous application to the Byzantine court; the trembling
president implored the mercy of the church; and the descendants of
Hercules enjoyed the satisfaction of raising a prostrate tyrant from the
ground. Such principles and such examples insensibly prepared the triumph
of the Roman pontiffs, who have trampled on the necks of kings.
VI. Every popular government has experienced the effects of rude or
artificial eloquence. The coldest nature is animated, the firmest reason
is moved, by the rapid communication of the prevailing impulse; and each
hearer is affected by his own passions, and by those of the surrounding
multitude. The ruin of civil liberty had silenced the demagogues of
Athens, and the tribunes of Rome; the custom of preaching which seems to
constitute a considerable part of Christian devotion, had not been
introduced into the temples of antiquity; and the ears of monarchs were
never invaded by the harsh sound of popular eloquence, till the pulpits of
the empire were filled with sacred orators, who possessed some advantages
unknown to their profane predecessors. The arguments and rhetoric of the
tribune were instantly opposed with equal arms, by skilful and resolute
antagonists; and the cause of truth and reason might derive an accidental
support from the conflict of hostile passions. The bishop, or some
distinguished presbyter, to whom he cautiously delegated the powers of
preaching, harangued, without the danger of interruption or reply, a
submissive multitude, whose minds had been prepared and subdued by the
awful ceremonies of religion. Such was the strict subordination of the
Catholic church, that the same concerted sounds might issue at once from a
hundred pulpits of Italy or Egypt, if they were tuned
by the master hand of the Roman or Alexandrian primate. The design of this
institution was laudable, but the fruits were not always salutary. The
preachers recommended the practice of the social duties; but they exalted
the perfection of monastic virtue, which is painful to the individual, and
useless to mankind. Their charitable exhortations betrayed a secret wish
that the clergy might be permitted to manage the wealth of the faithful,
for the benefit of the poor. The most sublime representations of the
attributes and laws of the Deity were sullied by an idle mixture of
metaphysical subtleties, puerile rites, and fictitious miracles: and they
expatiated, with the most fervent zeal, on the religious merit of hating
the adversaries, and obeying the ministers of the church. When the public
peace was distracted by heresy and schism, the sacred orators sounded the
trumpet of discord, and, perhaps, of sedition. The understandings of their
congregations were perplexed by mystery, their passions were inflamed by
invectives; and they rushed from the Christian temples of Antioch or
Alexandria, prepared either to suffer or to inflict martyrdom. The
corruption of taste and language is strongly marked in the vehement
declamations of the Latin bishops; but the compositions of Gregory and
Chrysostom have been compared with the most splendid models of Attic, or
at least of Asiatic, eloquence.
VII. The representatives of the Christian republic were regularly
assembled in the spring and autumn of each year; and these synods diffused
the spirit of ecclesiastical discipline and legislation through the
hundred and twenty provinces of the Roman world. The archbishop or
metropolitan was empowered, by the laws, to summon the suffragan bishops
of his province; to revise their conduct, to vindicate their rights, to
declare their faith, and to examine the merits of the candidates who were
elected by the clergy and people to supply the vacancies of the episcopal
college. The primates of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Carthage, and
afterwards Constantinople, who exercised a more ample jurisdiction,
convened the numerous assembly of their dependent bishops. But the
convocation of great and extraordinary synods was the prerogative of the
emperor alone. Whenever the emergencies of the church required this
decisive measure, he despatched a peremptory summons to the bishops, or
the deputies of each province, with an order for the use of post-horses,
and a competent allowance for the expenses of their journey. At an early
period, when Constantine was the protector, rather than the proselyte, of
Christianity, he referred the African controversy to the council of Arles;
in which the bishops of York of Treves, of Milan, and of Carthage, met as
friends and brethren, to debate in their native tongue on the common
interest of the Latin or Western church. Eleven years afterwards, a more
numerous and celebrated assembly was convened at Nice in Bithynia, to
extinguish, by their final sentence, the subtle disputes which had arisen
in Egypt on the subject of the Trinity. Three hundred and eighteen bishops
obeyed the summons of their indulgent master; the ecclesiastics of every
rank, and sect, and denomination, have been computed at two thousand and
forty-eight persons; the Greeks appeared in person; and the consent of the
Latins was expressed by the legates of the Roman pontiff. The session,
which lasted about two months, was frequently honored by the presence of
the emperor. Leaving his guards at the door, he seated himself (with the
permission of the council) on a low stool in the midst of the hall.
Constantine listened with patience, and spoke with modesty: and while he
influenced the debates, he humbly professed that he was the minister, not
the judge, of the successors of the apostles, who had been established as
priests and as gods upon earth. Such profound reverence of an absolute
monarch towards a feeble and unarmed assembly of his own subjects, can
only be compared to the respect with which the senate had been treated by
the Roman princes who adopted the policy of Augustus. Within the space of
fifty years, a philosophic spectator of the vicissitudes of human affairs
might have contemplated Tacitus in the senate of Rome, and Constantine in
the council of Nice. The fathers of the Capitol and those of the church
had alike degenerated from the virtues of their founders; but as the
bishops were more deeply rooted in the public opinion, they sustained
their dignity with more decent pride, and sometimes opposed with a manly
spirit the wishes of their sovereign. The progress of time and
superstition erased the memory of the weakness, the passion, the
ignorance, which disgraced these ecclesiastical synods; and the Catholic
world has unanimously submitted to the infallible
decrees of the general councils.
Persecution Of Heresy.—The Schism Of The Donatists.—The Arian Controversy.—Athanasius.—Distracted State Of The Church And Empire Under Constantine And His Sons.—Toleration Of Paganism.
The grateful applause of the clergy has consecrated the memory of a prince
who indulged their passions and promoted their interest. Constantine gave
them security, wealth, honors, and revenge; and the support of the
orthodox faith was considered as the most sacred and important duty of the
civil magistrate. The edict of Milan, the great charter of toleration, had
confirmed to each individual of the Roman world the privilege of choosing
and professing his own religion. But this inestimable privilege was soon
violated; with the knowledge of truth, the emperor imbibed the maxims of
persecution; and the sects which dissented from the Catholic church were
afflicted and oppressed by the triumph of Christianity. Constantine easily
believed that the Heretics, who presumed to dispute his
opinions, or to oppose his commands, were guilty
of the most absurd and criminal obstinacy; and that a seasonable
application of moderate severities might save those unhappy men from the
danger of an everlasting condemnation. Not a moment was lost in excluding
the ministers and teachers of the separated congregations from any share
of the rewards and immunities which the emperor had so liberally bestowed
on the orthodox clergy. But as the sectaries might still exist under the
cloud of royal disgrace, the conquest of the East was immediately followed
by an edict which announced their total destruction. After a preamble
filled with passion and reproach, Constantine absolutely prohibits the
assemblies of the Heretics, and confiscates their public property to the
use either of the revenue or of the Catholic church. The sects against
whom the Imperial severity was directed, appear to have been the adherents
of Paul of Samosata; the Montanists of Phrygia, who maintained an
enthusiastic succession of prophecy; the Novatians, who sternly rejected
the temporal efficacy of repentance; the Marcionites and Valentinians,
under whose leading banners the various Gnostics of Asia and Egypt had
insensibly rallied; and perhaps the Manichæans, who had recently
imported from Persia a more artful composition of Oriental and Christian
theology. The design of extirpating the name, or at least of restraining
the progress, of these odious Heretics, was prosecuted with vigor and
effect. Some of the penal regulations were copied from the edicts of
Diocletian; and this method of conversion was applauded by the same
bishops who had felt the hand of oppression, and pleaded for the rights of
humanity. Two immaterial circumstances may serve, however, to prove that
the mind of Constantine was not entirely corrupted by the spirit of zeal
and bigotry. Before he condemned the Manichæans and their kindred
sects, he resolved to make an accurate inquiry into the nature of their
religious principles. As if he distrusted the impartiality of his
ecclesiastical counsellors, this delicate commission was intrusted to a
civil magistrate, whose learning and moderation he justly esteemed, and of
whose venal character he was probably ignorant. The emperor was soon
convinced, that he had too hastily proscribed the orthodox faith and the
exemplary morals of the Novatians, who had dissented from the church in
some articles of discipline which were not perhaps essential to salvation.
By a particular edict, he exempted them from the general penalties of the
law; allowed them to build a church at Constantinople, respected the
miracles of their saints, invited their bishop Acesius to the council of
Nice; and gently ridiculed the narrow tenets of his sect by a familiar
jest; which, from the mouth of a sovereign, must have been received with
applause and gratitude.
The complaints and mutual accusations which assailed the throne of
Constantine, as soon as the death of Maxentius had submitted Africa to his
victorious arms, were ill adapted to edify an imperfect proselyte. He
learned, with surprise, that the provinces of that great country, from the
confines of Cyrene to the columns of Hercules, were distracted with
religious discord. The source of the division was derived from a double
election in the church of Carthage; the second, in rank and opulence, of
the ecclesiastical thrones of the West. Cæcilian and Majorinus were
the two rival prelates of Africa; and the death of the latter soon made
room for Donatus, who, by his superior abilities and apparent virtues, was
the firmest support of his party. The advantage which Cæcilian might
claim from the priority of his ordination, was destroyed by the illegal,
or at least indecent, haste, with which it had been performed, without
expecting the arrival of the bishops of Numidia. The authority of these
bishops, who, to the number of seventy, condemned Cæcilian, and
consecrated Majorinus, is again weakened by the infamy of some of their
personal characters; and by the female intrigues, sacrilegious bargains,
and tumultuous proceedings, which are imputed to this Numidian council.
The bishops of the contending factions maintained, with equal ardor and
obstinacy, that their adversaries were degraded, or at least dishonored,
by the odious crime of delivering the Holy Scriptures to the officers of
Diocletian. From their mutual reproaches, as well as from the story of
this dark transaction, it may justly be inferred, that the late
persecution had imbittered the zeal, without reforming the manners, of the
African Christians. That divided church was incapable of affording an
impartial judicature; the controversy was solemnly tried in five
successive tribunals, which were appointed by the emperor; and the whole
proceeding, from the first appeal to the final sentence, lasted above
three years. A severe inquisition, which was taken by the Prætorian
vicar, and the proconsul of Africa, the report of two episcopal visitors
who had been sent to Carthage, the decrees of the councils of Rome and of
Arles, and the supreme judgment of Constantine himself in his sacred
consistory, were all favorable to the cause of Cæcilian; and he was
unanimously acknowledged by the civil and ecclesiastical powers, as the
true and lawful primate of Africa. The honors and estates of the church
were attributed to his suffragan bishops, and it was not without
difficulty, that Constantine was satisfied with inflicting the punishment
of exile on the principal leaders of the Donatist faction. As their cause
was examined with attention, perhaps it was determined with justice.
Perhaps their complaint was not without foundation, that the credulity of
the emperor had been abused by the insidious arts of his favorite Osius.
The influence of falsehood and corruption might procure the condemnation
of the innocent, or aggravate the sentence of the guilty. Such an act,
however, of injustice, if it concluded an importunate dispute, might be
numbered among the transient evils of a despotic administration, which are
neither felt nor remembered by posterity.
But this incident, so inconsiderable that it scarcely deserves a place in
history, was productive of a memorable schism which afflicted the
provinces of Africa above three hundred years, and was extinguished only
with Christianity itself. The inflexible zeal of freedom and fanaticism
animated the Donatists to refuse obedience to the usurpers, whose election
they disputed, and whose spiritual powers they denied. Excluded from the
civil and religious communion of mankind, they boldly excommunicated the
rest of mankind, who had embraced the impious party of Cæcilian, and
of the Traditors, from which he derived his pretended ordination. They
asserted with confidence, and almost with exultation, that the Apostolical
succession was interrupted; that all the bishops of Europe and Asia were
infected by the contagion of guilt and schism; and that the prerogatives
of the Catholic church were confined to the chosen portion of the African
believers, who alone had preserved inviolate the integrity of their faith
and discipline. This rigid theory was supported by the most uncharitable
conduct. Whenever they acquired a proselyte, even from the distant
provinces of the East, they carefully repeated the sacred rites of baptism
and ordination; as they rejected the validity of those which he had
already received from the hands of heretics or schismatics. Bishops,
virgins, and even spotless infants, were subjected to the disgrace of a
public penance, before they could be admitted to the communion of the
Donatists. If they obtained possession of a church which had been used by
their Catholic adversaries, they purified the unhallowed building with the
same zealous care which a temple of idols might have required. They washed
the pavement, scraped the walls, burnt the altar, which was commonly of
wood, melted the consecrated plate, and cast the Holy Eucharist to the
dogs, with every circumstance of ignominy which could provoke and
perpetuate the animosity of religious factions. Notwithstanding this
irreconcilable aversion, the two parties, who were mixed and separated in
all the cities of Africa, had the same language and manners, the same zeal
and learning, the same faith and worship. Proscribed by the civil and
ecclesiastical powers of the empire, the Donatists still maintained in
some provinces, particularly in Numidia, their superior numbers; and four
hundred bishops acknowledged the jurisdiction of their primate. But the
invincible spirit of the sect sometimes preyed on its own vitals: and the
bosom of their schismatical church was torn by intestine divisions. A
fourth part of the Donatist bishops followed the independent standard of
the Maximianists. The narrow and solitary path which their first leaders
had marked out, continued to deviate from the great society of mankind.
Even the imperceptible sect of the Rogatians could affirm, without a
blush, that when Christ should descend to judge the earth, he would find
his true religion preserved only in a few nameless villages of the Cæsarean
Mauritania.
The schism of the Donatists was confined to Africa: the more diffusive
mischief of the Trinitarian controversy successively penetrated into every
part of the Christian world. The former was an accidental quarrel,
occasioned by the abuse of freedom; the latter was a high and mysterious
argument, derived from the abuse of philosophy. From the age of
Constantine to that of Clovis and Theodoric, the temporal interests both
of the Romans and Barbarians were deeply involved in the theological
disputes of Arianism. The historian may therefore be permitted
respectfully to withdraw the veil of the sanctuary; and to deduce the
progress of reason and faith, of error and passion from the school of
Plato, to the decline and fall of the empire.
The genius of Plato, informed by his own meditation, or by the traditional
knowledge of the priests of Egypt, had ventured to explore the mysterious
nature of the Deity. When he had elevated his mind to the sublime
contemplation of the first self-existent, necessary cause of the universe,
the Athenian sage was incapable of conceiving how the simple unity of his
essence could admit the infinite variety of distinct and successive ideas
which compose the model of the intellectual world; how a Being purely
incorporeal could execute that perfect model, and mould with a plastic
hand the rude and independent chaos. The vain hope of extricating himself
from these difficulties, which must ever oppress the feeble powers of the
human mind, might induce Plato to consider the divine nature under the
threefold modification—of the first cause, the reason, or Logos,
and the soul or spirit of the universe. His poetical imagination sometimes
fixed and animated these metaphysical abstractions; the three archical on
original principles were represented in the Platonic system as three Gods,
united with each other by a mysterious and ineffable generation; and the
Logos was particularly considered under the more accessible character of
the Son of an Eternal Father, and the Creator and Governor of the world.
Such appear to have been the secret doctrines which were cautiously
whispered in the gardens of the academy; and which, according to the more
recent disciples of Plato, * could not be perfectly understood, till after
an assiduous study of thirty years.
The arms of the Macedonians diffused over Asia and Egypt the language and
learning of Greece; and the theological system of Plato was taught, with
less reserve, and perhaps with some improvements, in the celebrated school
of Alexandria. A numerous colony of Jews had been invited, by the favor of
the Ptolemies, to settle in their new capital. While the bulk of the
nation practised the legal ceremonies, and pursued the lucrative
occupations of commerce, a few Hebrews, of a more liberal spirit, devoted
their lives to religious and philosophical contemplation. They cultivated
with diligence, and embraced with ardor, the theological system of the
Athenian sage. But their national pride would have been mortified by a
fair confession of their former poverty: and they boldly marked, as the
sacred inheritance of their ancestors, the gold and jewels which they had
so lately stolen from their Egyptian masters. One hundred years before the
birth of Christ, a philosophical treatise, which manifestly betrays the
style and sentiments of the school of Plato, was produced by the
Alexandrian Jews, and unanimously received as a genuine and valuable relic
of the inspired Wisdom of Solomon. A similar union of the Mosaic faith and
the Grecian philosophy, distinguishes the works of Philo, which were
composed, for the most part, under the reign of Augustus. The material
soul of the universe might offend the piety of the Hebrews: but they
applied the character of the Logos to the Jehovah of Moses and the
patriarchs; and the Son of God was introduced upon earth under a visible,
and even human appearance, to perform those familiar offices which seem
incompatible with the nature and attributes of the Universal Cause.
The eloquence of Plato, the name of Solomon, the authority of the school
of Alexandria, and the consent of the Jews and Greeks, were insufficient
to establish the truth of a mysterious doctrine, which might please, but
could not satisfy, a rational mind. A prophet, or apostle, inspired by the
Deity, can alone exercise a lawful dominion over the faith of mankind: and
the theology of Plato might have been forever confounded with the
philosophical visions of the Academy, the Porch, and the Lycæum, if
the name and divine attributes of the Logos had
not been confirmed by the celestial pen of the last and most sublime of
the Evangelists. The Christian Revelation, which was consummated under the
reign of Nerva, disclosed to the world the amazing secret, that the Logos,
who was with God from the beginning, and was God, who had made all things,
and for whom all things had been made, was incarnate in the person of
Jesus of Nazareth; who had been born of a virgin, and suffered death on
the cross. Besides the general design of fixing on a perpetual basis the
divine honors of Christ, the most ancient and respectable of the
ecclesiastical writers have ascribed to the evangelic theologian a
particular intention to confute two opposite heresies, which disturbed the
peace of the primitive church. I. The faith of the Ebionites, perhaps of
the Nazarenes, was gross and imperfect. They revered Jesus as the greatest
of the prophets, endowed with supernatural virtue and power. They ascribed
to his person and to his future reign all the predictions of the Hebrew
oracles which relate to the spiritual and everlasting kingdom of the
promised Messiah. Some of them might confess that he was born of a virgin;
but they obstinately rejected the preceding existence and divine
perfections of the Logos, or Son of God, which
are so clearly defined in the Gospel of St. John. About fifty years
afterwards, the Ebionites, whose errors are mentioned by Justin Martyr
with less severity than they seem to deserve, formed a very inconsiderable
portion of the Christian name. II. The Gnostics, who were distinguished by
the epithet of Docetes, deviated into the
contrary extreme; and betrayed the human, while they asserted the divine,
nature of Christ. Educated in the school of Plato, accustomed to the
sublime idea of the Logos, they readily
conceived that the brightest Æon, or
Emanation of the Deity, might assume the outward
shape and visible appearances of a mortal; but they vainly pretended, that
the imperfections of matter are incompatible with the purity of a
celestial substance. While the blood of Christ yet smoked on Mount
Calvary, the Docetes invented the impious and extravagant hypothesis,
that, instead of issuing from the womb of the Virgin, he had descended on
the banks of the Jordan in the form of perfect manhood; that he had
imposed on the senses of his enemies, and of his disciples; and that the
ministers of Pilate had wasted their impotent rage on an airy phantom, who
seemed to expire on the cross, and, after three
days, to rise from the dead.
The divine sanction, which the Apostle had bestowed on the fundamental
principle of the theology of Plato, encouraged the learned proselytes of
the second and third centuries to admire and study the writings of the
Athenian sage, who had thus marvellously anticipated one of the most
surprising discoveries of the Christian revelation. The respectable name
of Plato was used by the orthodox, and abused by the heretics, as the
common support of truth and error: the authority of his skilful
commentators, and the science of dialectics, were employed to justify the
remote consequences of his opinions and to supply the discreet silence of
the inspired writers. The same subtle and profound questions concerning
the nature, the generation, the distinction, and the equality of the three
divine persons of the mysterious Triad, or
Trinity, were agitated in the philosophical and
in the Christian schools of Alexandria. An eager spirit of curiosity urged
them to explore the secrets of the abyss; and the pride of the professors,
and of their disciples, was satisfied with the sciences of words. But the
most sagacious of the Christian theologians, the great Athanasius himself,
has candidly confessed, that whenever he forced his understanding to
meditate on the divinity of the Logos, his
toilsome and unavailing efforts recoiled on themselves; that the more he
thought, the less he comprehended; and the more he wrote, the less capable
was he of expressing his thoughts. In every step of the inquiry, we are
compelled to feel and acknowledge the immeasurable disproportion between
the size of the object and the capacity of the human mind. We may strive
to abstract the notions of time, of space, and of matter, which so closely
adhere to all the perceptions of our experimental knowledge. But as soon
as we presume to reason of infinite substance, of spiritual generation; as
often as we deduce any positive conclusions from a negative idea, we are
involved in darkness, perplexity, and inevitable contradiction. As these
difficulties arise from the nature of the subject, they oppress, with the
same insuperable weight, the philosophic and the theological disputant;
but we may observe two essential and peculiar circumstances, which
discriminated the doctrines of the Catholic church from the opinions of
the Platonic school.
I. A chosen society of philosophers, men of a liberal education and
curious disposition, might silently meditate, and temperately discuss in
the gardens of Athens or the library of Alexandria, the abstruse questions
of metaphysical science. The lofty speculations, which neither convinced
the understanding, nor agitated the passions, of the Platonists
themselves, were carelessly overlooked by the idle, the busy, and even the
studious part of mankind. But after the Logos
had been revealed as the sacred object of the faith, the hope, and the
religious worship of the Christians, the mysterious system was embraced by
a numerous and increasing multitude in every province of the Roman world.
Those persons who, from their age, or sex, or occupations, were the least
qualified to judge, who were the least exercised in the habits of abstract
reasoning, aspired to contemplate the economy of the Divine Nature: and it
is the boast of Tertullian, that a Christian mechanic could readily answer
such questions as had perplexed the wisest of the Grecian sages. Where the
subject lies so far beyond our reach, the difference between the highest
and the lowest of human understandings may indeed be calculated as
infinitely small; yet the degree of weakness may perhaps be measured by
the degree of obstinacy and dogmatic confidence. These speculations,
instead of being treated as the amusement of a vacant hour, became the
most serious business of the present, and the most useful preparation for
a future, life. A theology, which it was incumbent to believe, which it
was impious to doubt, and which it might be dangerous, and even fatal, to
mistake, became the familiar topic of private meditation and popular
discourse. The cold indifference of philosophy was inflamed by the fervent
spirit of devotion; and even the metaphors of common language suggested
the fallacious prejudices of sense and experience. The Christians, who
abhorred the gross and impure generation of the Greek mythology, were
tempted to argue from the familiar analogy of the filial and paternal
relations. The character of Son seemed to imply
a perpetual subordination to the voluntary author of his existence; but as
the act of generation, in the most spiritual and abstracted sense, must be
supposed to transmit the properties of a common nature, they durst not
presume to circumscribe the powers or the duration of the Son of an
eternal and omnipotent Father. Fourscore years after the death of Christ,
the Christians of Bithynia, declared before the tribunal of Pliny, that
they invoked him as a god: and his divine honors have been perpetuated in
every age and country, by the various sects who assume the name of his
disciples. Their tender reverence for the memory of Christ, and their
horror for the profane worship of any created being, would have engaged
them to assert the equal and absolute divinity of the Logos,
if their rapid ascent towards the throne of heaven had not been
imperceptibly checked by the apprehension of violating the unity and sole
supremacy of the great Father of Christ and of the Universe. The suspense
and fluctuation produced in the minds of the Christians by these opposite
tendencies, may be observed in the writings of the theologians who
flourished after the end of the apostolic age, and before the origin of
the Arian controversy. Their suffrage is claimed, with equal confidence,
by the orthodox and by the heretical parties; and the most inquisitive
critics have fairly allowed, that if they had the good fortune of
possessing the Catholic verity, they have delivered their conceptions in
loose, inaccurate, and sometimes contradictory language.
II. The devotion of individuals was the first circumstance which
distinguished the Christians from the Platonists: the second was the
authority of the church. The disciples of philosophy asserted the rights
of intellectual freedom, and their respect for the sentiments of their
teachers was a liberal and voluntary tribute, which they offered to
superior reason. But the Christians formed a numerous and disciplined
society; and the jurisdiction of their laws and magistrates was strictly
exercised over the minds of the faithful. The loose wanderings of the
imagination were gradually confined by creeds and confessions; the freedom
of private judgment submitted to the public wisdom of synods; the
authority of a theologian was determined by his ecclesiastical rank; and
the episcopal successors of the apostles inflicted the censures of the
church on those who deviated from the orthodox belief. But in an age of
religious controversy, every act of oppression adds new force to the
elastic vigor of the mind; and the zeal or obstinacy of a spiritual rebel
was sometimes stimulated by secret motives of ambition or avarice. A
metaphysical argument became the cause or pretence of political contests;
the subtleties of the Platonic school were used as the badges of popular
factions, and the distance which separated their respective tenets were
enlarged or magnified by the acrimony of dispute. As long as the dark
heresies of Praxeas and Sabellius labored to confound the Father
with the Son, the orthodox party might be
excused if they adhered more strictly and more earnestly to the distinction,
than to the equality, of the divine persons. But
as soon as the heat of controversy had subsided, and the progress of the
Sabellians was no longer an object of terror to the churches of Rome, of
Africa, or of Egypt, the tide of theological opinion began to flow with a
gentle but steady motion towards the contrary extreme; and the most
orthodox doctors allowed themselves the use of the terms and definitions
which had been censured in the mouth of the sectaries. After the edict of
toleration had restored peace and leisure to the Christians, the
Trinitarian controversy was revived in the ancient seat of Platonism, the
learned, the opulent, the tumultuous city of Alexandria; and the flame of
religious discord was rapidly communicated from the schools to the clergy,
the people, the province, and the East. The abstruse question of the
eternity of the Logos was agitated in
ecclesiastic conferences and popular sermons; and the heterodox opinions
of Arius were soon made public by his own zeal, and by that of his
adversaries. His most implacable adversaries have acknowledged the
learning and blameless life of that eminent presbyter, who, in a former
election, had declared, and perhaps generously declined, his pretensions
to the episcopal throne. His competitor Alexander assumed the office of
his judge. The important cause was argued before him; and if at first he
seemed to hesitate, he at length pronounced his final sentence, as an
absolute rule of faith. The undaunted presbyter, who presumed to resist
the authority of his angry bishop, was separated from the community of the
church. But the pride of Arius was supported by the applause of a numerous
party. He reckoned among his immediate followers two bishops of Egypt,
seven presbyters, twelve deacons, and (what may appear almost incredible)
seven hundred virgins. A large majority of the bishops of Asia appeared to
support or favor his cause; and their measures were conducted by Eusebius
of Cæsarea, the most learned of the Christian prelates; and by
Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had acquired the reputation of a statesman
without forfeiting that of a saint. Synods in Palestine and Bithynia were
opposed to the synods of Egypt. The attention of the prince and people was
attracted by this theological dispute; and the decision, at the end of six
years, was referred to the supreme authority of the general council of
Nice.
When the mysteries of the Christian faith were dangerously exposed to
public debate, it might be observed, that the human understanding was
capable of forming three district, though imperfect systems, concerning
the nature of the Divine Trinity; and it was pronounced, that none of
these systems, in a pure and absolute sense, were exempt from heresy and
error. I. According to the first hypothesis, which was maintained by Arius
and his disciples, the Logos was a dependent and
spontaneous production, created from nothing by the will of the father.
The Son, by whom all things were made, had been begotten before all
worlds, and the longest of the astronomical periods could be compared only
as a fleeting moment to the extent of his duration; yet this duration was
not infinite, and there had been a time which
preceded the ineffable generation of the Logos.
On this only-begotten Son, the Almighty Father had transfused his ample
spirit, and impressed the effulgence of his glory. Visible image of
invisible perfection, he saw, at an immeasurable distance beneath his
feet, the thrones of the brightest archangels; yet he shone only with a
reflected light, and, like the sons of the Romans emperors, who were
invested with the titles of Cæsar or Augustus, he governed the
universe in obedience to the will of his Father and Monarch. II. In the
second hypothesis, the Logos possessed all the
inherent, incommunicable perfections, which religion and philosophy
appropriate to the Supreme God. Three distinct and infinite minds or
substances, three coëqual and coëternal beings, composed the
Divine Essence; and it would have implied contradiction, that any of them
should not have existed, or that they should ever cease to exist. The
advocates of a system which seemed to establish three independent Deities,
attempted to preserve the unity of the First Cause, so conspicuous in the
design and order of the world, by the perpetual concord of their
administration, and the essential agreement of their will. A faint
resemblance of this unity of action may be discovered in the societies of
men, and even of animals. The causes which disturb their harmony, proceed
only from the imperfection and inequality of their faculties; but the
omnipotence which is guided by infinite wisdom and goodness, cannot fail
of choosing the same means for the accomplishment of the same ends. III.
Three beings, who, by the self-derived necessity of their existence,
possess all the divine attributes in the most perfect degree; who are
eternal in duration, infinite in space, and intimately present to each
other, and to the whole universe; irresistibly force themselves on the
astonished mind, as one and the same being, who, in the economy of grace,
as well as in that of nature, may manifest himself under different forms,
and be considered under different aspects. By this hypothesis, a real
substantial trinity is refined into a trinity of names, and abstract
modifications, that subsist only in the mind which conceives them. The
Logos is no longer a person, but an attribute;
and it is only in a figurative sense that the epithet of Son can be
applied to the eternal reason, which was with God from the beginning, and
by which, not by whom,
all things were made. The incarnation of the Logos
is reduced to a mere inspiration of the Divine Wisdom, which filled the
soul, and directed all the actions, of the man Jesus. Thus, after
revolving around the theological circle, we are surprised to find that the
Sabellian ends where the Ebionite had begun; and that the incomprehensible
mystery which excites our adoration, eludes our inquiry.
If the bishops of the council of Nice had been permitted to follow the
unbiased dictates of their conscience, Arius and his associates could
scarcely have flattered themselves with the hopes of obtaining a majority
of votes, in favor of an hypothesis so directly averse to the two most
popular opinions of the Catholic world. The Arians soon perceived the
danger of their situation, and prudently assumed those modest virtues,
which, in the fury of civil and religious dissensions, are seldom
practised, or even praised, except by the weaker party. They recommended
the exercise of Christian charity and moderation; urged the
incomprehensible nature of the controversy, disclaimed the use of any
terms or definitions which could not be found in the Scriptures; and
offered, by very liberal concessions, to satisfy their adversaries without
renouncing the integrity of their own principles. The victorious faction
received all their proposals with haughty suspicion; and anxiously sought
for some irreconcilable mark of distinction, the rejection of which might
involve the Arians in the guilt and consequences of heresy. A letter was
publicly read, and ignominiously torn, in which their patron, Eusebius of
Nicomedia, ingenuously confessed, that the admission of the Homoousion, or
Consubstantial, a word already familiar to the Platonists, was
incompatible with the principles of their theological system. The
fortunate opportunity was eagerly embraced by the bishops, who governed
the resolutions of the synod; and, according to the lively expression of
Ambrose, they used the sword, which heresy itself had drawn from the
scabbard, to cut off the head of the hated monster. The consubstantiality
of the Father and the Son was established by the council of Nice, and has
been unanimously received as a fundamental article of the Christian faith,
by the consent of the Greek, the Latin, the Oriental, and the Protestant
churches. But if the same word had not served to stigmatize the heretics,
and to unite the Catholics, it would have been inadequate to the purpose
of the majority, by whom it was introduced into the orthodox creed. This
majority was divided into two parties, distinguished by a contrary
tendency to the sentiments of the Tritheists and of the Sabellians. But as
those opposite extremes seemed to overthrow the foundations either of
natural or revealed religion, they mutually agreed to qualify the rigor of
their principles; and to disavow the just, but invidious, consequences,
which might be urged by their antagonists. The interest of the common
cause inclined them to join their numbers, and to conceal their
differences; their animosity was softened by the healing counsels of
toleration, and their disputes were suspended by the use of the mysterious
Homoousion, which either party was free to
interpret according to their peculiar tenets. The Sabellian sense, which,
about fifty years before, had obliged the council of Antioch to prohibit
this celebrated term, had endeared it to those theologians who entertained
a secret but partial affection for a nominal Trinity. But the more
fashionable saints of the Arian times, the intrepid Athanasius, the
learned Gregory Nazianzen, and the other pillars of the church, who
supported with ability and success the Nicene doctrine, appeared to
consider the expression of substance as if it
had been synonymous with that of nature; and
they ventured to illustrate their meaning, by affirming that three men, as
they belong to the same common species, are consubstantial, or homoousian
to each other. This pure and distinct equality was tempered, on the one
hand, by the internal connection, and spiritual penetration which
indissolubly unites the divine persons; and, on the other, by the
preeminence of the Father, which was acknowledged as far as it is
compatible with the independence of the Son. Within these limits, the
almost invisible and tremulous ball of orthodoxy was allowed securely to
vibrate. On either side, beyond this consecrated ground, the heretics and
the dæmons lurked in ambush to surprise and devour the unhappy
wanderer. But as the degrees of theological hatred depend on the spirit of
the war, rather than on the importance of the controversy, the heretics
who degraded, were treated with more severity than those who annihilated,
the person of the Son. The life of Athanasius was consumed in
irreconcilable opposition to the impious madness of the Arians;
but he defended above twenty years the Sabellianism of Marcellus of
Ancyra; and when at last he was compelled to withdraw himself from his
communion, he continued to mention, with an ambiguous smile, the venial
errors of his respectable friend.
The authority of a general council, to which the Arians themselves had
been compelled to submit, inscribed on the banners of the orthodox party
the mysterious characters of the word Homoousion,
which essentially contributed, notwithstanding some obscure disputes, some
nocturnal combats, to maintain and perpetuate the uniformity of faith, or
at least of language. The Consubstantialists, who by their success have
deserved and obtained the title of Catholics, gloried in the simplicity
and steadiness of their own creed, and insulted the repeated variations of
their adversaries, who were destitute of any certain rule of faith. The
sincerity or the cunning of the Arian chiefs, the fear of the laws or of
the people, their reverence for Christ, their hatred of Athanasius, all
the causes, human and divine, that influence and disturb the counsels of a
theological faction, introduced among the sectaries a spirit of discord
and inconstancy, which, in the course of a few years, erected eighteen
different models of religion, and avenged the violated dignity of the
church. The zealous Hilary, who, from the peculiar hardships of his
situation, was inclined to extenuate rather than to aggravate the errors
of the Oriental clergy, declares, that in the wide extent of the ten
provinces of Asia, to which he had been banished, there could be found
very few prelates who had preserved the knowledge of the true God. The
oppression which he had felt, the disorders of which he was the spectator
and the victim, appeased, during a short interval, the angry passions of
his soul; and in the following passage, of which I shall transcribe a few
lines, the bishop of Poitiers unwarily deviates into the style of a
Christian philosopher. "It is a thing," says Hilary, "equally deplorable
and dangerous, that there are as many creeds as opinions among men, as
many doctrines as inclinations, and as many sources of blasphemy as there
are faults among us; because we make creeds arbitrarily, and explain them
as arbitrarily. The Homoousion is rejected, and received, and explained
away by successive synods. The partial or total resemblance of the Father
and of the Son is a subject of dispute for these unhappy times. Every
year, nay, every moon, we make new creeds to describe invisible mysteries.
We repent of what we have done, we defend those who repent, we
anathematize those whom we defended. We condemn either the doctrine of
others in ourselves, or our own in that of others; and reciprocally
tearing one another to pieces, we have been the cause of each other's
ruin."
It will not be expected, it would not perhaps be endured, that I should
swell this theological digression, by a minute examination of the eighteen
creeds, the authors of which, for the most part, disclaimed the odious
name of their parent Arius. It is amusing enough to delineate the form,
and to trace the vegetation, of a singular plant; but the tedious detail
of leaves without flowers, and of branches without fruit, would soon
exhaust the patience, and disappoint the curiosity, of the laborious
student. One question, which gradually arose from the Arian controversy,
may, however, be noticed, as it served to produce and discriminate the
three sects, who were united only by their common aversion to the
Homoousion of the Nicene synod. 1. If they were asked
whether the Son was like unto the Father, the question was resolutely
answered in the negative, by the heretics who adhered to the principles of
Arius, or indeed to those of philosophy; which seem to establish an
infinite difference between the Creator and the most excellent of his
creatures. This obvious consequence was maintained by Ætius, on whom
the zeal of his adversaries bestowed the surname of the Atheist. His
restless and aspiring spirit urged him to try almost every profession of
human life. He was successively a slave, or at least a husbandman, a
travelling tinker, a goldsmith, a physician, a schoolmaster, a theologian,
and at last the apostle of a new church, which was propagated by the
abilities of his disciple Eunomius. Armed with texts of Scripture, and
with captious syllogisms from the logic of Aristotle, the subtle Ætius
had acquired the fame of an invincible disputant, whom it was impossible
either to silence or to convince. Such talents engaged the friendship of
the Arian bishops, till they were forced to renounce, and even to
persecute, a dangerous ally, who, by the accuracy of his reasoning, had
prejudiced their cause in the popular opinion, and offended the piety of
their most devoted followers. 2. The omnipotence of the
Creator suggested a specious and respectful solution of the likeness
of the Father and the Son; and faith might humbly receive what reason
could not presume to deny, that the Supreme God might communicate his
infinite perfections, and create a being similar only to himself. These
Arians were powerfully supported by the weight and abilities of their
leaders, who had succeeded to the management of the Eusebian interest, and
who occupied the principal thrones of the East. They detested, perhaps
with some affectation, the impiety of Ætius; they professed to
believe, either without reserve, or according to the Scriptures, that the
Son was different from all other creatures, and
similar only to the Father. But they denied, the he was either of the
same, or of a similar substance; sometimes boldly justifying their
dissent, and sometimes objecting to the use of the word substance, which
seems to imply an adequate, or at least, a distinct, notion of the nature
of the Deity. 3. The sect which deserted the doctrine of
a similar substance, was the most numerous, at least in the provinces of
Asia; and when the leaders of both parties were assembled in the council
of Seleucia, their opinion would have prevailed
by a majority of one hundred and five to forty-three bishops. The Greek
word, which was chosen to express this mysterious resemblance, bears so
close an affinity to the orthodox symbol, that the profane of every age
have derided the furious contests which the difference of a single
diphthong excited between the Homoousians and the Homoiousians. As it
frequently happens, that the sounds and characters which approach the
nearest to each other accidentally represent the most opposite ideas, the
observation would be itself ridiculous, if it were possible to mark any
real and sensible distinction between the doctrine of the Semi-Arians, as
they were improperly styled, and that of the Catholics themselves. The
bishop of Poitiers, who in his Phrygian exile very wisely aimed at a
coalition of parties, endeavors to prove that by a pious and faithful
interpretation, the Homoiousion may be reduced
to a consubstantial sense. Yet he confesses that the word has a dark and
suspicious aspect; and, as if darkness were congenial to theological
disputes, the Semi-Arians, who advanced to the doors of the church,
assailed them with the most unrelenting fury.
The provinces of Egypt and Asia, which cultivated the language and manners
of the Greeks, had deeply imbibed the venom of the Arian controversy. The
familiar study of the Platonic system, a vain and argumentative
disposition, a copious and flexible idiom, supplied the clergy and people
of the East with an inexhaustible flow of words and distinctions; and, in
the midst of their fierce contentions, they easily forgot the doubt which
is recommended by philosophy, and the submission which is enjoined by
religion. The inhabitants of the West were of a less inquisitive spirit;
their passions were not so forcibly moved by invisible objects, their
minds were less frequently exercised by the habits of dispute; and such
was the happy ignorance of the Gallican church, that Hilary himself, above
thirty years after the first general council, was still a stranger to the
Nicene creed. The Latins had received the rays of divine knowledge through
the dark and doubtful medium of a translation. The poverty and
stubbornness of their native tongue was not always capable of affording
just equivalents for the Greek terms, for the technical words of the
Platonic philosophy, which had been consecrated, by the gospel or by the
church, to express the mysteries of the Christian faith; and a verbal
defect might introduce into the Latin theology a long train of error or
perplexity. But as the western provincials had the good fortune of
deriving their religion from an orthodox source, they preserved with
steadiness the doctrine which they had accepted with docility; and when
the Arian pestilence approached their frontiers, they were supplied with
the seasonable preservative of the Homoousion, by the paternal care of the
Roman pontiff. Their sentiments and their temper were displayed in the
memorable synod of Rimini, which surpassed in numbers the council of Nice,
since it was composed of above four hundred bishops of Italy, Africa,
Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Illyricum. From the first debates it appeared,
that only fourscore prelates adhered to the party, though they
affected to anathematize the name and memory, of Arius. But this
inferiority was compensated by the advantages of skill, of experience, and
of discipline; and the minority was conducted by Valens and Ursacius, two
bishops of Illyricum, who had spent their lives in the intrigues of courts
and councils, and who had been trained under the Eusebian banner in the
religious wars of the East. By their arguments and negotiations, they
embarrassed, they confounded, they at last deceived, the honest simplicity
of the Latin bishops; who suffered the palladium of the faith to be
extorted from their hand by fraud and importunity, rather than by open
violence. The council of Rimini was not allowed to separate, till the
members had imprudently subscribed a captious creed, in which some
expressions, susceptible of an heretical sense, were inserted in the room
of the Homoousion. It was on this occasion, that, according to Jerom, the
world was surprised to find itself Arian. But the bishops of the Latin
provinces had no sooner reached their respective dioceses, than they
discovered their mistake, and repented of their weakness. The ignominious
capitulation was rejected with disdain and abhorrence; and the Homoousian
standard, which had been shaken but not overthrown, was more firmly
replanted in all the churches of the West.
Such was the rise and progress, and such were the natural revolutions of
those theological disputes, which disturbed the peace of Christianity
under the reigns of Constantine and of his sons. But as those princes
presumed to extend their despotism over the faith, as well as over the
lives and fortunes, of their subjects, the weight of their suffrage
sometimes inclined the ecclesiastical balance: and the prerogatives of the
King of Heaven were settled, or changed, or modified, in the cabinet of an
earthly monarch.
The unhappy spirit of discord which pervaded the provinces of the East,
interrupted the triumph of Constantine; but the emperor continued for some
time to view, with cool and careless indifference, the object of the
dispute. As he was yet ignorant of the difficulty of appeasing the
quarrels of theologians, he addressed to the contending parties, to
Alexander and to Arius, a moderating epistle; which may be ascribed, with
far greater reason, to the untutored sense of a soldier and statesman,
than to the dictates of any of his episcopal counsellors. He attributes
the origin of the whole controversy to a trifling and subtle question,
concerning an incomprehensible point of law, which was foolishly asked by
the bishop, and imprudently resolved by the presbyter. He laments that the
Christian people, who had the same God, the same religion, and the same
worship, should be divided by such inconsiderable distinctions; and he
seriously recommends to the clergy of Alexandria the example of the Greek
philosophers; who could maintain their arguments without losing their
temper, and assert their freedom without violating their friendship. The
indifference and contempt of the sovereign would have been, perhaps, the
most effectual method of silencing the dispute, if the popular current had
been less rapid and impetuous, and if Constantine himself, in the midst of
faction and fanaticism, could have preserved the calm possession of his
own mind. But his ecclesiastical ministers soon contrived to seduce the
impartiality of the magistrate, and to awaken the zeal of the proselyte.
He was provoked by the insults which had been offered to his statues; he
was alarmed by the real, as well as the imaginary magnitude of the
spreading mischief; and he extinguished the hope of peace and toleration,
from the moment that he assembled three hundred bishops within the walls
of the same palace. The presence of the monarch swelled the importance of
the debate; his attention multiplied the arguments; and he exposed his
person with a patient intrepidity, which animated the valor of the
combatants. Notwithstanding the applause which has been bestowed on the
eloquence and sagacity of Constantine, a Roman general, whose religion
might be still a subject of doubt, and whose mind had not been enlightened
either by study or by inspiration, was indifferently qualified to discuss,
in the Greek language, a metaphysical question, or an article of faith.
But the credit of his favorite Osius, who appears to have presided in the
council of Nice, might dispose the emperor in favor of the orthodox party;
and a well-timed insinuation, that the same Eusebius of Nicomedia, who now
protected the heretic, had lately assisted the tyrant, might exasperate
him against their adversaries. The Nicene creed was ratified by
Constantine; and his firm declaration, that those who resisted the divine
judgment of the synod, must prepare themselves for an immediate exile,
annihilated the murmurs of a feeble opposition; which, from seventeen, was
almost instantly reduced to two, protesting bishops. Eusebius of Cæsarea
yielded a reluctant and ambiguous consent to the Homoousion; and the
wavering conduct of the Nicomedian Eusebius served only to delay, about
three months, his disgrace and exile. The impious Arius was banished into
one of the remote provinces of Illyricum; his person and disciples were
branded by law with the odious name of Porphyrians; his writings were
condemned to the flames, and a capital punishment was denounced against
those in whose possession they should be found. The emperor had now
imbibed the spirit of controversy, and the angry, sarcastic style of his
edicts was designed to inspire his subjects with the hatred which he had
conceived against the enemies of Christ.
But, as if the conduct of the emperor had been guided by passion instead
of principle, three years from the council of Nice were scarcely elapsed
before he discovered some symptoms of mercy, and even of indulgence,
towards the proscribed sect, which was secretly protected by his favorite
sister. The exiles were recalled, and Eusebius, who gradually resumed his
influence over the mind of Constantine, was restored to the episcopal
throne, from which he had been ignominiously degraded. Arius himself was
treated by the whole court with the respect which would have been due to
an innocent and oppressed man. His faith was approved by the synod of
Jerusalem; and the emperor seemed impatient to repair his injustice, by
issuing an absolute command, that he should be solemnly admitted to the
communion in the cathedral of Constantinople. On the same day, which had
been fixed for the triumph of Arius, he expired; and the strange and
horrid circumstances of his death might excite a suspicion, that the
orthodox saints had contributed more efficaciously than by their prayers,
to deliver the church from the most formidable of her enemies. The three
principal leaders of the Catholics, Athanasius of Alexandria, Eustathius
of Antioch, and Paul of Constantinople were deposed on various false
accusations, by the sentence of numerous councils; and were afterwards
banished into distant provinces by the first of the Christian emperors,
who, in the last moments of his life, received the rites of baptism from
the Arian bishop of Nicomedia. The ecclesiastical government of
Constantine cannot be justified from the reproach of levity and weakness.
But the credulous monarch, unskilled in the stratagems of theological
warfare, might be deceived by the modest and specious professions of the
heretics, whose sentiments he never perfectly understood; and while he
protected Arius, and persecuted Athanasius, he still considered the
council of Nice as the bulwark of the Christian faith, and the peculiar
glory of his own reign.
The sons of Constantine must have been admitted from their childhood into
the rank of catechumens; but they imitated, in the delay of their baptism,
the example of their father. Like him they presumed to pronounce their
judgment on mysteries into which they had never been regularly initiated;
and the fate of the Trinitarian controversy depended, in a great measure,
on the sentiments of Constantius; who inherited the provinces of the East,
and acquired the possession of the whole empire. The Arian presbyter or
bishop, who had secreted for his use the testament of the deceased
emperor, improved the fortunate occasion which had introduced him to the
familiarity of a prince, whose public counsels were always swayed by his
domestic favorites. The eunuchs and slaves diffused the spiritual poison
through the palace, and the dangerous infection was communicated by the
female attendants to the guards, and by the empress to her unsuspicious
husband. The partiality which Constantius always expressed towards the
Eusebian faction, was insensibly fortified by the dexterous management of
their leaders; and his victory over the tyrant Magnentius increased his
inclination, as well as ability, to employ the arms of power in the cause
of Arianism. While the two armies were engaged in the plains of Mursa, and
the fate of the two rivals depended on the chance of war, the son of
Constantine passed the anxious moments in a church of the martyrs under
the walls of the city. His spiritual comforter, Valens, the Arian bishop
of the diocese, employed the most artful precautions to obtain such early
intelligence as might secure either his favor or his escape. A secret
chain of swift and trusty messengers informed him of the vicissitudes of
the battle; and while the courtiers stood trembling round their affrighted
master, Valens assured him that the Gallic legions gave way; and
insinuated with some presence of mind, that the glorious event had been
revealed to him by an angel. The grateful emperor ascribed his success to
the merits and intercession of the bishop of Mursa, whose faith had
deserved the public and miraculous approbation of Heaven. The Arians, who
considered as their own the victory of Constantius, preferred his glory to
that of his father. Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, immediately composed the
description of a celestial cross, encircled with a splendid rainbow; which
during the festival of Pentecost, about the third hour of the day, had
appeared over the Mount of Olives, to the edification of the devout
pilgrims, and the people of the holy city. The size of the meteor was
gradually magnified; and the Arian historian has ventured to affirm, that
it was conspicuous to the two armies in the plains of Pannonia; and that
the tyrant, who is purposely represented as an idolater, fled before the
auspicious sign of orthodox Christianity.
The sentiments of a judicious stranger, who has impartially considered the
progress of civil or ecclesiastical discord, are always entitled to our
notice; and a short passage of Ammianus, who served in the armies, and
studied the character of Constantius, is perhaps of more value than many
pages of theological invectives. "The Christian religion, which, in
itself," says that moderate historian, "is plain and simple, he
confounded by the dotage of superstition. Instead of reconciling the
parties by the weight of his authority, he cherished and promulgated, by
verbal disputes, the differences which his vain curiosity had excited. The
highways were covered with troops of bishops galloping from every side to
the assemblies, which they call synods; and while they labored to reduce
the whole sect to their own particular opinions, the public establishment
of the posts was almost ruined by their hasty and repeated journeys." Our
more intimate knowledge of the ecclesiastical transactions of the reign of
Constantius would furnish an ample commentary on this remarkable passage,
which justifies the rational apprehensions of Athanasius, that the
restless activity of the clergy, who wandered round the empire in search
of the true faith, would excite the contempt and laughter of the
unbelieving world. As soon as the emperor was relieved from the terrors of
the civil war, he devoted the leisure of his winter quarters at Arles,
Milan, Sirmium, and Constantinople, to the amusement or toils of
controversy: the sword of the magistrate, and even of the tyrant, was
unsheathed, to enforce the reasons of the theologian; and as he opposed
the orthodox faith of Nice, it is readily confessed that his incapacity
and ignorance were equal to his presumption. The eunuchs, the women, and
the bishops, who governed the vain and feeble mind of the emperor, had
inspired him with an insuperable dislike to the Homoousion; but his timid
conscience was alarmed by the impiety of Ætius. The guilt of that
atheist was aggravated by the suspicious favor of the unfortunate Gallus;
and even the death of the Imperial ministers, who had been massacred at
Antioch, were imputed to the suggestions of that dangerous sophist. The
mind of Constantius, which could neither be moderated by reason, nor fixed
by faith, was blindly impelled to either side of the dark and empty abyss,
by his horror of the opposite extreme; he alternately embraced and
condemned the sentiments, he successively banished and recalled the
leaders, of the Arian and Semi-Arian factions. During the season of public
business or festivity, he employed whole days, and even nights, in
selecting the words, and weighing the syllables, which composed his
fluctuating creeds. The subject of his meditations still pursued and
occupied his slumbers: the incoherent dreams of the emperor were received
as celestial visions, and he accepted with complacency the lofty title of
bishop of bishops, from those ecclesiastics who forgot the interest of
their order for the gratification of their passions. The design of
establishing a uniformity of doctrine, which had engaged him to convene so
many synods in Gaul, Italy, Illyricum, and Asia, was repeatedly baffled by
his own levity, by the divisions of the Arians, and by the resistance of
the Catholics; and he resolved, as the last and decisive effort,
imperiously to dictate the decrees of a general council. The destructive
earthquake of Nicomedia, the difficulty of finding a convenient place, and
perhaps some secret motives of policy, produced an alteration in the
summons. The bishops of the East were directed to meet at Seleucia, in
Isauria; while those of the West held their deliberations at Rimini, on
the coast of the Hadriatic; and instead of two or three deputies from each
province, the whole episcopal body was ordered to march. The Eastern
council, after consuming four days in fierce and unavailing debate,
separated without any definitive conclusion. The council of the West was
protracted till the seventh month. Taurus, the Prætorian præfect
was instructed not to dismiss the prelates till they should all be united
in the same opinion; and his efforts were supported by the power of
banishing fifteen of the most refractory, and a promise of the consulship
if he achieved so difficult an adventure. His prayers and threats, the
authority of the sovereign, the sophistry of Valens and Ursacius, the
distress of cold and hunger, and the tedious melancholy of a hopeless
exile, at length extorted the reluctant consent of the bishops of Rimini.
The deputies of the East and of the West attended the emperor in the
palace of Constantinople, and he enjoyed the satisfaction of imposing on
the world a profession of faith which established the likeness, without
expressing the consubstantiality, of the Son of
God. But the triumph of Arianism had been preceded by the removal of the
orthodox clergy, whom it was impossible either to intimidate or to
corrupt; and the reign of Constantius was disgraced by the unjust and
ineffectual persecution of the great Athanasius.
We have seldom an opportunity of observing, either in active or
speculative life, what effect may be produced, or what obstacles may be
surmounted, by the force of a single mind, when it is inflexibly applied
to the pursuit of a single object. The immortal name of Athanasius will
never be separated from the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, to whose
defence he consecrated every moment and every faculty of his being.
Educated in the family of Alexander, he had vigorously opposed the early
progress of the Arian heresy: he exercised the important functions of
secretary under the aged prelate; and the fathers of the Nicene council
beheld with surprise and respect the rising virtues of the young deacon.
In a time of public danger, the dull claims of age and of rank are
sometimes superseded; and within five months after his return from Nice,
the deacon Athanasius was seated on the archiepiscopal throne of Egypt. He
filled that eminent station above forty-six years, and his long
administration was spent in a perpetual combat against the powers of
Arianism. Five times was Athanasius expelled from his throne; twenty years
he passed as an exile or a fugitive: and almost every province of the
Roman empire was successively witness to his merit, and his sufferings in
the cause of the Homoousion, which he considered as the sole pleasure and
business, as the duty, and as the glory of his life. Amidst the storms of
persecution, the archbishop of Alexandria was patient of labor, jealous of
fame, careless of safety; and although his mind was tainted by the
contagion of fanaticism, Athanasius displayed a superiority of character
and abilities, which would have qualified him, far better than the
degenerate sons of Constantine, for the government of a great monarchy.
His learning was much less profound and extensive than that of Eusebius of
Cæsarea, and his rude eloquence could not be compared with the
polished oratory of Gregory of Basil; but whenever the primate of Egypt
was called upon to justify his sentiments, or his conduct, his
unpremeditated style, either of speaking or writing, was clear, forcible,
and persuasive. He has always been revered, in the orthodox school, as one
of the most accurate masters of the Christian theology; and he was
supposed to possess two profane sciences, less adapted to the episcopal
character, the knowledge of jurisprudence, and that of divination. Some
fortunate conjectures of future events, which impartial reasoners might
ascribe to the experience and judgment of Athanasius, were attributed by
his friends to heavenly inspiration, and imputed by his enemies to
infernal magic.
But as Athanasius was continually engaged with the prejudices and passions
of every order of men, from the monk to the emperor, the knowledge of
human nature was his first and most important science. He preserved a
distinct and unbroken view of a scene which was incessantly shifting; and
never failed to improve those decisive moments which are irrecoverably
past before they are perceived by a common eye. The archbishop of
Alexandria was capable of distinguishing how far he might boldly command,
and where he must dexterously insinuate; how long he might contend with
power, and when he must withdraw from persecution; and while he directed
the thunders of the church against heresy and rebellion, he could assume,
in the bosom of his own party, the flexible and indulgent temper of a
prudent leader. The election of Athanasius has not escaped the reproach of
irregularity and precipitation; but the propriety of his behavior
conciliated the affections both of the clergy and of the people. The
Alexandrians were impatient to rise in arms for the defence of an eloquent
and liberal pastor. In his distress he always derived support, or at least
consolation, from the faithful attachment of his parochial clergy; and the
hundred bishops of Egypt adhered, with unshaken zeal, to the cause of
Athanasius. In the modest equipage which pride and policy would affect, he
frequently performed the episcopal visitation of his provinces, from the
mouth of the Nile to the confines of Æthiopia; familiarly conversing
with the meanest of the populace, and humbly saluting the saints and
hermits of the desert. Nor was it only in ecclesiastical assemblies, among
men whose education and manners were similar to his own, that Athanasius
displayed the ascendancy of his genius. He appeared with easy and
respectful firmness in the courts of princes; and in the various turns of
his prosperous and adverse fortune he never lost the confidence of his
friends, or the esteem of his enemies.
In his youth, the primate of Egypt resisted the great Constantine, who had
repeatedly signified his will, that Arius should be restored to the
Catholic communion. The emperor respected, and might forgive, this
inflexible resolution; and the faction who considered Athanasius as their
most formidable enemy, was constrained to dissemble their hatred, and
silently to prepare an indirect and distant assault. They scattered rumors
and suspicions, represented the archbishop as a proud and oppressive
tyrant, and boldly accused him of violating the treaty which had been
ratified in the Nicene council, with the schismatic followers of Meletius.
Athanasius had openly disapproved that ignominious peace, and the emperor
was disposed to believe that he had abused his ecclesiastical and civil
power, to prosecute those odious sectaries: that he had sacrilegiously
broken a chalice in one of their churches of Mareotis; that he had whipped
or imprisoned six of their bishops; and that Arsenius, a seventh bishop of
the same party, had been murdered, or at least mutilated, by the cruel
hand of the primate. These charges, which affected his honor and his life,
were referred by Constantine to his brother Dalmatius the censor, who
resided at Antioch; the synods of Cæsarea and Tyre were successively
convened; and the bishops of the East were instructed to judge the cause
of Athanasius, before they proceeded to consecrate the new church of the
Resurrection at Jerusalem. The primate might be conscious of his
innocence; but he was sensible that the same implacable spirit which had
dictated the accusation, would direct the proceeding, and pronounce the
sentence. He prudently declined the tribunal of his enemies; despised the
summons of the synod of Cæsarea; and, after a long and artful delay,
submitted to the peremptory commands of the emperor, who threatened to
punish his criminal disobedience if he refused to appear in the council of
Tyre. Before Athanasius, at the head of fifty Egyptian prelates, sailed
from Alexandria, he had wisely secured the alliance of the Meletians; and
Arsenius himself, his imaginary victim, and his secret friend, was
privately concealed in his train. The synod of Tyre was conducted by
Eusebius of Cæsarea, with more passion, and with less art, than his
learning and experience might promise; his numerous faction repeated the
names of homicide and tyrant; and their clamors were encouraged by the
seeming patience of Athanasius, who expected the decisive moment to
produce Arsenius alive and unhurt in the midst of the assembly. The nature
of the other charges did not admit of such clear and satisfactory replies;
yet the archbishop was able to prove, that in the village, where he was
accused of breaking a consecrated chalice, neither church nor altar nor
chalice could really exist. The Arians, who had secretly determined the
guilt and condemnation of their enemy, attempted, however, to disguise
their injustice by the imitation of judicial forms: the synod appointed an
episcopal commission of six delegates to collect evidence on the spot; and
this measure which was vigorously opposed by the Egyptian bishops, opened
new scenes of violence and perjury. After the return of the deputies from
Alexandria, the majority of the council pronounced the final sentence of
degradation and exile against the primate of Egypt. The decree, expressed
in the fiercest language of malice and revenge, was communicated to the
emperor and the Catholic church; and the bishops immediately resumed a
mild and devout aspect, such as became their holy pilgrimage to the
Sepulchre of Christ.
But the injustice of these ecclesiastical judges had not been countenanced
by the submission, or even by the presence, of Athanasius. He resolved to
make a bold and dangerous experiment, whether the throne was inaccessible
to the voice of truth; and before the final sentence could be pronounced
at Tyre, the intrepid primate threw himself into a bark which was ready to
hoist sail for the Imperial city. The request of a formal audience might
have been opposed or eluded; but Athanasius concealed his arrival, watched
the moment of Constantine's return from an adjacent villa, and boldly
encountered his angry sovereign as he passed on horseback through the
principal street of Constantinople. So strange an apparition excited his
surprise and indignation; and the guards were ordered to remove the
importunate suitor; but his resentment was subdued by involuntary respect;
and the haughty spirit of the emperor was awed by the courage and
eloquence of a bishop, who implored his justice and awakened his
conscience. Constantine listened to the complaints of Athanasius with
impartial and even gracious attention; the members of the synod of Tyre
were summoned to justify their proceedings; and the arts of the Eusebian
faction would have been confounded, if they had not aggravated the guilt
of the primate, by the dexterous supposition of an unpardonable offence; a
criminal design to intercept and detain the corn-fleet of Alexandria,
which supplied the subsistence of the new capital. The emperor was
satisfied that the peace of Egypt would be secured by the absence of a
popular leader; but he refused to fill the vacancy of the archiepiscopal
throne; and the sentence, which, after long hesitation, he pronounced, was
that of a jealous ostracism, rather than of an ignominious exile. In the
remote province of Gaul, but in the hospitable court of Treves, Athanasius
passed about twenty eight months. The death of the emperor changed the
face of public affairs and, amidst the general indulgence of a young
reign, the primate was restored to his country by an honorable edict of
the younger Constantine, who expressed a deep sense of the innocence and
merit of his venerable guest.
The death of that prince exposed Athanasius to a second persecution; and
the feeble Constantius, the sovereign of the East, soon became the secret
accomplice of the Eusebians. Ninety bishops of that sect or faction
assembled at Antioch, under the specious pretence of dedicating the
cathedral. They composed an ambiguous creed, which is faintly tinged with
the colors of Semi-Arianism, and twenty-five canons, which still regulate
the discipline of the orthodox Greeks. It was decided, with some
appearance of equity, that a bishop, deprived by a synod, should not
resume his episcopal functions till he had been absolved by the judgment
of an equal synod; the law was immediately applied to the case of
Athanasius; the council of Antioch pronounced, or rather confirmed, his
degradation: a stranger, named Gregory, was seated on his throne; and
Philagrius, the præfect of Egypt, was instructed to support the new
primate with the civil and military powers of the province. Oppressed by
the conspiracy of the Asiatic prelates, Athanasius withdrew from
Alexandria, and passed three years as an exile and a suppliant on the holy
threshold of the Vatican. By the assiduous study of the Latin language, he
soon qualified himself to negotiate with the western clergy; his decent
flattery swayed and directed the haughty Julius; the Roman pontiff was
persuaded to consider his appeal as the peculiar interest of the Apostolic
see: and his innocence was unanimously declared in a council of fifty
bishops of Italy. At the end of three years, the primate was summoned to
the court of Milan by the emperor Constans, who, in the indulgence of
unlawful pleasures, still professed a lively regard for the orthodox
faith. The cause of truth and justice was promoted by the influence of
gold, and the ministers of Constans advised their sovereign to require the
convocation of an ecclesiastical assembly, which might act as the
representatives of the Catholic church. Ninety-four bishops of the West,
seventy-six bishops of the East, encountered each other at Sardica, on the
verge of the two empires, but in the dominions of the protector of
Athanasius. Their debates soon degenerated into hostile altercations; the
Asiatics, apprehensive for their personal safety, retired to Philippopolis
in Thrace; and the rival synods reciprocally hurled their spiritual
thunders against their enemies, whom they piously condemned as the enemies
of the true God. Their decrees were published and ratified in their
respective provinces: and Athanasius, who in the West was revered as a
saint, was exposed as a criminal to the abhorrence of the East. The
council of Sardica reveals the first symptoms of discord and schism
between the Greek and Latin churches which were separated by the
accidental difference of faith, and the permanent distinction of language.
During his second exile in the West, Athanasius was frequently admitted to
the Imperial presence; at Capua, Lodi, Milan, Verona, Padua, Aquileia, and
Treves. The bishop of the diocese usually assisted at these interviews;
the master of the offices stood before the veil or curtain of the sacred
apartment; and the uniform moderation of the primate might be attested by
these respectable witnesses, to whose evidence he solemnly appeals.
Prudence would undoubtedly suggest the mild and respectful tone that
became a subject and a bishop. In these familiar conferences with the
sovereign of the West, Athanasius might lament the error of Constantius,
but he boldly arraigned the guilt of his eunuchs and his Arian prelates;
deplored the distress and danger of the Catholic church; and excited
Constans to emulate the zeal and glory of his father. The emperor declared
his resolution of employing the troops and treasures of Europe in the
orthodox cause; and signified, by a concise and peremptory epistle to his
brother Constantius, that unless he consented to the immediate restoration
of Athanasius, he himself, with a fleet and army, would seat the
archbishop on the throne of Alexandria. But this religious war, so
horrible to nature, was prevented by the timely compliance of Constantius;
and the emperor of the East condescended to solicit a reconciliation with
a subject whom he had injured. Athanasius waited with decent pride, till
he had received three successive epistles full of the strongest assurances
of the protection, the favor, and the esteem of his sovereign; who invited
him to resume his episcopal seat, and who added the humiliating precaution
of engaging his principal ministers to attest the sincerity of his
intentions. They were manifested in a still more public manner, by the
strict orders which were despatched into Egypt to recall the adherents of
Athanasius, to restore their privileges, to proclaim their innocence, and
to erase from the public registers the illegal proceedings which had been
obtained during the prevalence of the Eusebian faction. After every
satisfaction and security had been given, which justice or even delicacy
could require, the primate proceeded, by slow journeys, through the
provinces of Thrace, Asia, and Syria; and his progress was marked by the
abject homage of the Oriental bishops, who excited his contempt without
deceiving his penetration. At Antioch he saw the emperor Constantius;
sustained, with modest firmness, the embraces and protestations of his
master, and eluded the proposal of allowing the Arians a single church at
Alexandria, by claiming, in the other cities of the empire, a similar
toleration for his own party; a reply which might have appeared just and
moderate in the mouth of an independent prince. The entrance of the
archbishop into his capital was a triumphal procession; absence and
persecution had endeared him to the Alexandrians; his authority, which he
exercised with rigor, was more firmly established; and his fame was
diffused from Æthiopia to Britain, over the whole extent of the
Christian world.
But the subject who has reduced his prince to the necessity of
dissembling, can never expect a sincere and lasting forgiveness; and the
tragic fate of Constans soon deprived Athanasius of a powerful and
generous protector. The civil war between the assassin and the only
surviving brother of Constans, which afflicted the empire above three
years, secured an interval of repose to the Catholic church; and the two
contending parties were desirous to conciliate the friendship of a bishop,
who, by the weight of his personal authority, might determine the
fluctuating resolutions of an important province. He gave audience to the
ambassadors of the tyrant, with whom he was afterwards accused of holding
a secret correspondence; and the emperor Constantius repeatedly assured
his dearest father, the most reverend Athanasius, that, notwithstanding
the malicious rumors which were circulated by their common enemies, he had
inherited the sentiments, as well as the throne, of his deceased brother.
Gratitude and humanity would have disposed the primate of Egypt to deplore
the untimely fate of Constans, and to abhor the guilt of Magnentius; but
as he clearly understood that the apprehensions of Constantius were his
only safeguard, the fervor of his prayers for the success of the righteous
cause might perhaps be somewhat abated. The ruin of Athanasius was no
longer contrived by the obscure malice of a few bigoted or angry bishops,
who abused the authority of a credulous monarch. The monarch himself
avowed the resolution, which he had so long suppressed, of avenging his
private injuries; and the first winter after his victory, which he passed
at Arles, was employed against an enemy more odious to him than the
vanquished tyrant of Gaul.
If the emperor had capriciously decreed the death of the most eminent and
virtuous citizen of the republic, the cruel order would have been executed
without hesitation, by the ministers of open violence or of specious
injustice. The caution, the delay, the difficulty with which he proceeded
in the condemnation and punishment of a popular bishop, discovered to the
world that the privileges of the church had already revived a sense of
order and freedom in the Roman government. The sentence which was
pronounced in the synod of Tyre, and subscribed by a large majority of the
Eastern bishops, had never been expressly repealed; and as Athanasius had
been once degraded from his episcopal dignity by the judgment of his
brethren, every subsequent act might be considered as irregular, and even
criminal. But the memory of the firm and effectual support which the
primate of Egypt had derived from the attachment of the Western church,
engaged Constantius to suspend the execution of the sentence till he had
obtained the concurrence of the Latin bishops. Two years were consumed in
ecclesiastical negotiations; and the important cause between the emperor
and one of his subjects was solemnly debated, first in the synod of Arles,
and afterwards in the great council of Milan, which consisted of above
three hundred bishops. Their integrity was gradually undermined by the
arguments of the Arians, the dexterity of the eunuchs, and the pressing
solicitations of a prince who gratified his revenge at the expense of his
dignity, and exposed his own passions, whilst he influenced those of the
clergy. Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty,
was successfully practised; honors, gifts, and immunities were offered and
accepted as the price of an episcopal vote; and the condemnation of the
Alexandrian primate was artfully represented as the only measure which
could restore the peace and union of the Catholic church. The friends of
Athanasius were not, however, wanting to their leader, or to their cause.
With a manly spirit, which the sanctity of their character rendered less
dangerous, they maintained, in public debate, and in private conference
with the emperor, the eternal obligation of religion and justice. They
declared, that neither the hope of his favor, nor the fear of his
displeasure, should prevail on them to join in the condemnation of an
absent, an innocent, a respectable brother. They affirmed, with apparent
reason, that the illegal and obsolete decrees of the council of Tyre had
long since been tacitly abolished by the Imperial edicts, the honorable
reestablishment of the archbishop of Alexandria, and the silence or
recantation of his most clamorous adversaries. They alleged, that his
innocence had been attested by the unanimous bishops of Egypt, and had
been acknowledged in the councils of Rome and Sardica, by the impartial
judgment of the Latin church. They deplored the hard condition of
Athanasius, who, after enjoying so many years his seat, his reputation,
and the seeming confidence of his sovereign, was again called upon to
confute the most groundless and extravagant accusations. Their language
was specious; their conduct was honorable: but in this long and obstinate
contest, which fixed the eyes of the whole empire on a single bishop, the
ecclesiastical factions were prepared to sacrifice truth and justice to
the more interesting object of defending or removing the intrepid champion
of the Nicene faith. The Arians still thought it prudent to disguise, in
ambiguous language, their real sentiments and designs; but the orthodox
bishops, armed with the favor of the people, and the decrees of a general
council, insisted on every occasion, and particularly at Milan, that their
adversaries should purge themselves from the suspicion of heresy, before
they presumed to arraign the conduct of the great Athanasius.
But the voice of reason (if reason was indeed on the side of Athanasius)
was silenced by the clamors of a factious or venal majority; and the
councils of Arles and Milan were not dissolved, till the archbishop of
Alexandria had been solemnly condemned and deposed by the judgment of the
Western, as well as of the Eastern, church. The bishops who had opposed,
were required to subscribe, the sentence, and to unite in religious
communion with the suspected leaders of the adverse party. A formulary of
consent was transmitted by the messengers of state to the absent bishops:
and all those who refused to submit their private opinion to the public
and inspired wisdom of the councils of Arles and Milan, were immediately
banished by the emperor, who affected to execute the decrees of the
Catholic church. Among those prelates who led the honorable band of
confessors and exiles, Liberius of Rome, Osius of Cordova, Paulinus of
Treves, Dionysius of Milan, Eusebius of Vercellæ, Lucifer of
Cagliari and Hilary of Poitiers, may deserve to be particularly
distinguished. The eminent station of Liberius, who governed the capital
of the empire; the personal merit and long experience of the venerable
Osius, who was revered as the favorite of the great Constantine, and the
father of the Nicene faith, placed those prelates at the head of the Latin
church: and their example, either of submission or resistance, would
probable be imitated by the episcopal crowd. But the repeated attempts of
the emperor to seduce or to intimidate the bishops of Rome and Cordova,
were for some time ineffectual. The Spaniard declared himself ready to
suffer under Constantius, as he had suffered threescore years before under
his grandfather Maximian. The Roman, in the presence of his sovereign,
asserted the innocence of Athanasius and his own freedom. When he was
banished to Beræa in Thrace, he sent back a large sum which had been
offered for the accommodation of his journey; and insulted the court of
Milan by the haughty remark, that the emperor and his eunuchs might want
that gold to pay their soldiers and their bishops. The resolution of
Liberius and Osius was at length subdued by the hardships of exile and
confinement. The Roman pontiff purchased his return by some criminal
compliances; and afterwards expiated his guilt by a seasonable repentance.
Persuasion and violence were employed to extort the reluctant signature of
the decrepit bishop of Cordova, whose strength was broken, and whose
faculties were perhaps impaired by the weight of a hundred years; and the
insolent triumph of the Arians provoked some of the orthodox party to
treat with inhuman severity the character, or rather the memory, of an
unfortunate old man, to whose former services Christianity itself was so
deeply indebted.
The fall of Liberius and Osius reflected a brighter lustre on the firmness
of those bishops who still adhered, with unshaken fidelity, to the cause
of Athanasius and religious truth. The ingenious malice of their enemies
had deprived them of the benefit of mutual comfort and advice, separated
those illustrious exiles into distant provinces, and carefully selected
the most inhospitable spots of a great empire. Yet they soon experienced
that the deserts of Libya, and the most barbarous tracts of Cappadocia,
were less inhospitable than the residence of those cities in which an
Arian bishop could satiate, without restraint, the exquisite rancor of
theological hatred. Their consolation was derived from the consciousness
of rectitude and independence, from the applause, the visits, the letters,
and the liberal alms of their adherents, and from the satisfaction which
they soon enjoyed of observing the intestine divisions of the adversaries
of the Nicene faith. Such was the nice and capricious taste of the emperor
Constantius; and so easily was he offended by the slightest deviation from
his imaginary standard of Christian truth, that he persecuted, with equal
zeal, those who defended the consubstantiality,
those who asserted the similar substance,
and those who denied the likeness of the Son of
God. Three bishops, degraded and banished for those adverse opinions,
might possibly meet in the same place of exile; and, according to the
difference of their temper, might either pity or insult the blind
enthusiasm of their antagonists, whose present sufferings would never be
compensated by future happiness.
The disgrace and exile of the orthodox bishops of the West were designed
as so many preparatory steps to the ruin of Athanasius himself.
Six-and-twenty months had elapsed, during which the Imperial court
secretly labored, by the most insidious arts, to remove him from
Alexandria, and to withdraw the allowance which supplied his popular
liberality. But when the primate of Egypt, deserted and proscribed by the
Latin church, was left destitute of any foreign support, Constantius
despatched two of his secretaries with a verbal commission to announce and
execute the order of his banishment. As the justice of the sentence was
publicly avowed by the whole party, the only motive which could restrain
Constantius from giving his messengers the sanction of a written mandate,
must be imputed to his doubt of the event; and to a sense of the danger to
which he might expose the second city, and the most fertile province, of
the empire, if the people should persist in the resolution of defending,
by force of arms, the innocence of their spiritual father. Such extreme
caution afforded Athanasius a specious pretence respectfully to dispute
the truth of an order, which he could not reconcile, either with the
equity, or with the former declarations, of his gracious master. The civil
powers of Egypt found themselves inadequate to the task of persuading or
compelling the primate to abdicate his episcopal throne; and they were
obliged to conclude a treaty with the popular leaders of Alexandria, by
which it was stipulated, that all proceedings and all hostilities should
be suspended till the emperor's pleasure had been more distinctly
ascertained. By this seeming moderation, the Catholics were deceived into
a false and fatal security; while the legions of the Upper Egypt, and of
Libya, advanced, by secret orders and hasty marches, to besiege, or rather
to surprise, a capital habituated to sedition, and inflamed by religious
zeal. The position of Alexandria, between the sea and the Lake Mareotis,
facilitated the approach and landing of the troops; who were introduced
into the heart of the city, before any effectual measures could be taken
either to shut the gates or to occupy the important posts of defence. At
the hour of midnight, twenty-three days after the signature of the treaty,
Syrianus, duke of Egypt, at the head of five thousand soldiers, armed and
prepared for an assault, unexpectedly invested the church of St. Theonas,
where the archbishop, with a part of his clergy and people, performed
their nocturnal devotions. The doors of the sacred edifice yielded to the
impetuosity of the attack, which was accompanied with every horrid
circumstance of tumult and bloodshed; but, as the bodies of the slain, and
the fragments of military weapons, remained the next day an
unexceptionable evidence in the possession of the Catholics, the
enterprise of Syrianus may be considered as a successful irruption rather
than as an absolute conquest. The other churches of the city were profaned
by similar outrages; and, during at least four months, Alexandria was
exposed to the insults of a licentious army, stimulated by the
ecclesiastics of a hostile faction. Many of the faithful were killed; who
may deserve the name of martyrs, if their deaths were neither provoked nor
revenged; bishops and presbyters were treated with cruel ignominy;
consecrated virgins were stripped naked, scourged and violated; the houses
of wealthy citizens were plundered; and, under the mask of religious zeal,
lust, avarice, and private resentment were gratified with impunity, and
even with applause. The Pagans of Alexandria, who still formed a numerous
and discontented party, were easily persuaded to desert a bishop whom they
feared and esteemed. The hopes of some peculiar favors, and the
apprehension of being involved in the general penalties of rebellion,
engaged them to promise their support to the destined successor of
Athanasius, the famous George of Cappadocia. The usurper, after receiving
the consecration of an Arian synod, was placed on the episcopal throne by
the arms of Sebastian, who had been appointed Count of Egypt for the
execution of that important design. In the use, as well as in the
acquisition, of power, the tyrant, George disregarded the laws of
religion, of justice, and of humanity; and the same scenes of violence and
scandal which had been exhibited in the capital, were repeated in more
than ninety episcopal cities of Egypt. Encouraged by success, Constantius
ventured to approve the conduct of his minister. By a public and
passionate epistle, the emperor congratulates the deliverance of
Alexandria from a popular tyrant, who deluded his blind votaries by the
magic of his eloquence; expatiates on the virtues and piety of the most
reverend George, the elected bishop; and aspires, as the patron and
benefactor of the city to surpass the fame of Alexander himself. But he
solemnly declares his unalterable resolution to pursue with fire and sword
the seditious adherents of the wicked Athanasius, who, by flying from
justice, has confessed his guilt, and escaped the ignominious death which
he had so often deserved.
Athanasius had indeed escaped from the most imminent dangers; and the
adventures of that extraordinary man deserve and fix our attention. On the
memorable night when the church of St. Theonas was invested by the troops
of Syrianus, the archbishop, seated on his throne, expected, with calm and
intrepid dignity, the approach of death. While the public devotion was
interrupted by shouts of rage and cries of terror, he animated his
trembling congregation to express their religious confidence, by chanting
one of the psalms of David which celebrates the triumph of the God of Isræl
over the haughty and impious tyrant of Egypt. The doors were at length
burst open: a cloud of arrows was discharged among the people; the
soldiers, with drawn swords, rushed forwards into the sanctuary; and the
dreadful gleam of their arms was reflected by the holy luminaries which
burnt round the altar. Athanasius still rejected the pious importunity of
the monks and presbyters, who were attached to his person; and nobly
refused to desert his episcopal station, till he had dismissed in safety
the last of the congregation. The darkness and tumult of the night favored
the retreat of the archbishop; and though he was oppressed by the waves of
an agitated multitude, though he was thrown to the ground, and left
without sense or motion, he still recovered his undaunted courage, and
eluded the eager search of the soldiers, who were instructed by their
Arian guides, that the head of Athanasius would be the most acceptable
present to the emperor. From that moment the primate of Egypt disappeared
from the eyes of his enemies, and remained above six years concealed in
impenetrable obscurity.
The despotic power of his implacable enemy filled the whole extent of the
Roman world; and the exasperated monarch had endeavored, by a very
pressing epistle to the Christian princes of Ethiopia, * to exclude
Athanasius from the most remote and sequestered regions of the earth.
Counts, præfects, tribunes, whole armies, were successively employed
to pursue a bishop and a fugitive; the vigilance of the civil and military
powers was excited by the Imperial edicts; liberal rewards were promised
to the man who should produce Athanasius, either alive or dead; and the
most severe penalties were denounced against those who should dare to
protect the public enemy. But the deserts of Thebais were now peopled by a
race of wild, yet submissive fanatics, who preferred the commands of their
abbot to the laws of their sovereign. The numerous disciples of Antony and
Pachomius received the fugitive primate as their father, admired the
patience and humility with which he conformed to their strictest
institutions, collected every word which dropped from his lips as the
genuine effusions of inspired wisdom; and persuaded themselves that their
prayers, their fasts, and their vigils, were less meritorious than the
zeal which they expressed, and the dangers which they braved, in the
defence of truth and innocence. The monasteries of Egypt were seated in
lonely and desolate places, on the summit of mountains, or in the islands
of the Nile; and the sacred horn or trumpet of Tabenne was the well-known
signal which assembled several thousand robust and determined monks, who,
for the most part, had been the peasants of the adjacent country. When
their dark retreats were invaded by a military force, which it was
impossible to resist, they silently stretched out their necks to the
executioner; and supported their national character, that tortures could
never wrest from an Egyptian the confession of a secret which he was
resolved not to disclose. The archbishop of Alexandria, for whose safety
they eagerly devoted their lives, was lost among a uniform and
well-disciplined multitude; and on the nearer approach of danger, he was
swiftly removed, by their officious hands, from one place of concealment
to another, till he reached the formidable deserts, which the gloomy and
credulous temper of superstition had peopled with dæmons and savage
monsters. The retirement of Athanasius, which ended only with the life of
Constantius, was spent, for the most part, in the society of the monks,
who faithfully served him as guards, as secretaries, and as messengers;
but the importance of maintaining a more intimate connection with the
Catholic party tempted him, whenever the diligence of the pursuit was
abated, to emerge from the desert, to introduce himself into Alexandria,
and to trust his person to the discretion of his friends and adherents.
His various adventures might have furnished the subject of a very
entertaining romance. He was once secreted in a dry cistern, which he had
scarcely left before he was betrayed by the treachery of a female slave;
and he was once concealed in a still more extraordinary asylum, the house
of a virgin, only twenty years of age, and who was celebrated in the whole
city for her exquisite beauty. At the hour of midnight, as she related the
story many years afterwards, she was surprised by the appearance of the
archbishop in a loose undress, who, advancing with hasty steps, conjured
her to afford him the protection which he had been directed by a celestial
vision to seek under her hospitable roof. The pious maid accepted and
preserved the sacred pledge which was intrusted to her prudence and
courage. Without imparting the secret to any one, she instantly conducted
Athanasius into her most secret chamber, and watched over his safety with
the tenderness of a friend and the assiduity of a servant. As long as the
danger continued, she regularly supplied him with books and provisions,
washed his feet, managed his correspondence, and dexterously concealed
from the eye of suspicion this familiar and solitary intercourse between a
saint whose character required the most unblemished chastity, and a female
whose charms might excite the most dangerous emotions. During the six
years of persecution and exile, Athanasius repeated his visits to his fair
and faithful companion; and the formal declaration, that he saw
the councils of Rimini and Seleucia, forces us to believe that he was
secretly present at the time and place of their convocation. The advantage
of personally negotiating with his friends, and of observing and improving
the divisions of his enemies, might justify, in a prudent statesman, so
bold and dangerous an enterprise: and Alexandria was connected by trade
and navigation with every seaport of the Mediterranean. From the depth of
his inaccessible retreat the intrepid primate waged an incessant and
offensive war against the protector of the Arians; and his seasonable
writings, which were diligently circulated and eagerly perused,
contributed to unite and animate the orthodox party. In his public
apologies, which he addressed to the emperor himself, he sometimes
affected the praise of moderation; whilst at the same time, in secret and
vehement invectives, he exposed Constantius as a weak and wicked prince,
the executioner of his family, the tyrant of the republic, and the
Antichrist of the church. In the height of his prosperity, the victorious
monarch, who had chastised the rashness of Gallus, and suppressed the
revolt of Sylvanus, who had taken the diadem from the head of Vetranio,
and vanquished in the field the legions of Magnentius, received from an
invisible hand a wound, which he could neither heal nor revenge; and the
son of Constantine was the first of the Christian princes who experienced
the strength of those principles, which, in the cause of religion, could
resist the most violent exertions of the civil power.
The persecution of Athanasius, and of so many respectable bishops, who
suffered for the truth of their opinions, or at least for the integrity of
their conscience, was a just subject of indignation and discontent to all
Christians, except those who were blindly devoted to the Arian faction.
The people regretted the loss of their faithful pastors, whose banishment
was usually followed by the intrusion of a stranger into the episcopal
chair; and loudly complained, that the right of election was violated, and
that they were condemned to obey a mercenary usurper, whose person was
unknown, and whose principles were suspected. The Catholics might prove to
the world, that they were not involved in the guilt and heresy of their
ecclesiastical governor, by publicly testifying their dissent, or by
totally separating themselves from his communion. The first of these
methods was invented at Antioch, and practised with such success, that it
was soon diffused over the Christian world. The doxology or sacred hymn,
which celebrates the glory of the Trinity, is
susceptible of very nice, but material, inflections; and the substance of
an orthodox, or an heretical, creed, may be expressed by the difference of
a disjunctive, or a copulative, particle. Alternate responses, and a more
regular psalmody, were introduced into the public service by Flavianus and
Diodorus, two devout and active laymen, who were attached to the Nicene
faith. Under their conduct a swarm of monks issued from the adjacent
desert, bands of well-disciplined singers were stationed in the cathedral
of Antioch, the Glory to the Father, And the Son, And the Holy Ghost, was
triumphantly chanted by a full chorus of voices; and the Catholics
insulted, by the purity of their doctrine, the Arian prelate, who had
usurped the throne of the venerable Eustathius. The same zeal which
inspired their songs prompted the more scrupulous members of the orthodox
party to form separate assemblies, which were governed by the presbyters,
till the death of their exiled bishop allowed the election and
consecration of a new episcopal pastor. The revolutions of the court
multiplied the number of pretenders; and the same city was often disputed,
under the reign of Constantius, by two, or three, or even four, bishops,
who exercised their spiritual jurisdiction over their respective
followers, and alternately lost and regained the temporal possessions of
the church. The abuse of Christianity introduced into the Roman government
new causes of tyranny and sedition; the bands of civil society were torn
asunder by the fury of religious factions; and the obscure citizen, who
might calmly have surveyed the elevation and fall of successive emperors,
imagined and experienced, that his own life and fortune were connected
with the interests of a popular ecclesiastic. The example of the two
capitals, Rome and Constantinople, may serve to represent the state of the
empire, and the temper of mankind, under the reign of the sons of
Constantine.
I. The Roman pontiff, as long as he maintained his station and his
principles, was guarded by the warm attachment of a great people; and
could reject with scorn the prayers, the menaces, and the oblations of an
heretical prince. When the eunuchs had secretly pronounced the exile of
Liberius, the well-grounded apprehension of a tumult engaged them to use
the utmost precautions in the execution of the sentence. The capital was
invested on every side, and the præfect was commanded to seize the
person of the bishop, either by stratagem or by open force. The order was
obeyed, and Liberius, with the greatest difficulty, at the hour of
midnight, was swiftly conveyed beyond the reach of the Roman people,
before their consternation was turned into rage. As soon as they were
informed of his banishment into Thrace, a general assembly was convened,
and the clergy of Rome bound themselves, by a public and solemn oath,
never to desert their bishop, never to acknowledge the usurper Fælix;
who, by the influence of the eunuchs, had been irregularly chosen and
consecrated within the walls of a profane palace. At the end of two years,
their pious obstinacy subsisted entire and unshaken; and when Constantius
visited Rome, he was assailed by the importunate solicitations of a
people, who had preserved, as the last remnant of their ancient freedom,
the right of treating their sovereign with familiar insolence. The wives
of many of the senators and most honorable citizens, after pressing their
husbands to intercede in favor of Liberius, were advised to undertake a
commission, which in their hands would be less dangerous, and might prove
more successful. The emperor received with politeness these female
deputies, whose wealth and dignity were displayed in the magnificence of
their dress and ornaments: he admired their inflexible resolution of
following their beloved pastor to the most distant regions of the earth;
and consented that the two bishops, Liberius and Fælix, should
govern in peace their respective congregations. But the ideas of
toleration were so repugnant to the practice, and even to the sentiments,
of those times, that when the answer of Constantius was publicly read in
the Circus of Rome, so reasonable a project of accommodation was rejected
with contempt and ridicule. The eager vehemence which animated the
spectators in the decisive moment of a horse-race, was now directed
towards a different object; and the Circus resounded with the shout of
thousands, who repeatedly exclaimed, "One God, One Christ, One Bishop!"
The zeal of the Roman people in the cause of Liberius was not confined to
words alone; and the dangerous and bloody sedition which they excited soon
after the departure of Constantius determined that prince to accept the
submission of the exiled prelate, and to restore him to the undivided
dominion of the capital. After some ineffectual resistance, his rival was
expelled from the city by the permission of the emperor and the power of
the opposite faction; the adherents of Fælix were inhumanly murdered
in the streets, in the public places, in the baths, and even in the
churches; and the face of Rome, upon the return of a Christian bishop,
renewed the horrid image of the massacres of Marius, and the proscriptions
of Sylla.
II. Notwithstanding the rapid increase of Christians under the reign of
the Flavian family, Rome, Alexandria, and the other great cities of the
empire, still contained a strong and powerful faction of Infidels, who
envied the prosperity, and who ridiculed, even in their theatres, the
theological disputes of the church. Constantinople alone enjoyed the
advantage of being born and educated in the bosom of the faith. The
capital of the East had never been polluted by the worship of idols; and
the whole body of the people had deeply imbibed the opinions, the virtues,
and the passions, which distinguished the Christians of that age from the
rest of mankind. After the death of Alexander, the episcopal throne was
disputed by Paul and Macedonius. By their zeal and abilities they both
deserved the eminent station to which they aspired; and if the moral
character of Macedonius was less exceptionable, his competitor had the
advantage of a prior election and a more orthodox doctrine. His firm
attachment to the Nicene creed, which has given Paul a place in the
calendar among saints and martyrs, exposed him to the resentment of the
Arians. In the space of fourteen years he was five times driven from his
throne; to which he was more frequently restored by the violence of the
people, than by the permission of the prince; and the power of Macedonius
could be secured only by the death of his rival. The unfortunate Paul was
dragged in chains from the sandy deserts of Mesopotamia to the most
desolate places of Mount Taurus, confined in a dark and narrow dungeon,
left six days without food, and at length strangled, by the order of
Philip, one of the principal ministers of the emperor Constantius. The
first blood which stained the new capital was spilt in this ecclesiastical
contest; and many persons were slain on both sides, in the furious and
obstinate seditions of the people. The commission of enforcing a sentence
of banishment against Paul had been intrusted to Hermogenes, the
master-general of the cavalry; but the execution of it was fatal to
himself. The Catholics rose in the defence of their bishop; the palace of
Hermogenes was consumed; the first military officer of the empire was
dragged by the heels through the streets of Constantinople, and, after he
expired, his lifeless corpse was exposed to their wanton insults. The fate
of Hermogenes instructed Philip, the Prætorian præfect, to act
with more precaution on a similar occasion. In the most gentle and
honorable terms, he required the attendance of Paul in the baths of
Zeuxippus, which had a private communication with the palace and the sea.
A vessel, which lay ready at the garden stairs, immediately hoisted sail;
and, while the people were still ignorant of the meditated sacrilege,
their bishop was already embarked on his voyage to Thessalonica. They soon
beheld, with surprise and indignation, the gates of the palace thrown
open, and the usurper Macedonius seated by the side of the præfect
on a lofty chariot, which was surrounded by troops of guards with drawn
swords. The military procession advanced towards the cathedral; the Arians
and the Catholics eagerly rushed to occupy that important post; and three
thousand one hundred and fifty persons lost their lives in the confusion
of the tumult. Macedonius, who was supported by a regular force, obtained
a decisive victory; but his reign was disturbed by clamor and sedition;
and the causes which appeared the least connected with the subject of
dispute, were sufficient to nourish and to kindle the flame of civil
discord. As the chapel in which the body of the great Constantine had been
deposited was in a ruinous condition, the bishop transported those
venerable remains into the church of St. Acacius. This prudent and even
pious measure was represented as a wicked profanation by the whole party
which adhered to the Homoousian doctrine. The factions immediately flew to
arms, the consecrated ground was used as their field of battle; and one of
the ecclesiastical historians has observed, as a real fact, not as a
figure of rhetoric, that the well before the church overflowed with a
stream of blood, which filled the porticos and the adjacent courts. The
writer who should impute these tumults solely to a religious principle,
would betray a very imperfect knowledge of human nature; yet it must be
confessed that the motive which misled the sincerity of zeal, and the
pretence which disguised the licentiousness of passion, suppressed the
remorse which, in another cause, would have succeeded to the rage of the
Christians at Constantinople.
The cruel and arbitrary disposition of Constantius, which did not always
require the provocations of guilt and resistance, was justly exasperated
by the tumults of his capital, and the criminal behavior of a faction,
which opposed the authority and religion of their sovereign. The ordinary
punishments of death, exile, and confiscation, were inflicted with partial
vigor; and the Greeks still revere the holy memory of two clerks, a
reader, and a sub-deacon, who were accused of the murder of Hermogenes,
and beheaded at the gates of Constantinople. By an edict of Constantius
against the Catholics which has not been judged worthy of a place in the
Theodosian code, those who refused to communicate with the Arian bishops,
and particularly with Macedonius, were deprived of the immunities of
ecclesiastics, and of the rights of Christians; they were compelled to
relinquish the possession of the churches; and were strictly prohibited
from holding their assemblies within the walls of the city. The execution
of this unjust law, in the provinces of Thrace and Asia Minor, was
committed to the zeal of Macedonius; the civil and military powers were
directed to obey his commands; and the cruelties exercised by this
Semi-Arian tyrant in the support of the Homoiousion,
exceeded the commission, and disgraced the reign, of Constantius. The
sacraments of the church were administered to the reluctant victims, who
denied the vocation, and abhorred the principles, of Macedonius. The rites
of baptism were conferred on women and children, who, for that purpose,
had been torn from the arms of their friends and parents; the mouths of
the communicants were held open by a wooden engine, while the consecrated
bread was forced down their throat; the breasts of tender virgins were
either burnt with red-hot egg-shells, or inhumanly compressed between
sharp and heavy boards. The Novatians of Constantinople and the adjacent
country, by their firm attachment to the Homoousian standard, deserved to
be confounded with the Catholics themselves. Macedonius was informed, that
a large district of Paphlagonia was almost entirely inhabited by those
sectaries. He resolved either to convert or to extirpate them; and as he
distrusted, on this occasion, the efficacy of an ecclesiastical mission,
he commanded a body of four thousand legionaries to march against the
rebels, and to reduce the territory of Mantinium under his spiritual
dominion. The Novatian peasants, animated by despair and religious fury,
boldly encountered the invaders of their country; and though many of the
Paphlagonians were slain, the Roman legions were vanquished by an
irregular multitude, armed only with scythes and axes; and, except a few
who escaped by an ignominious flight, four thousand soldiers were left
dead on the field of battle. The successor of Constantius has expressed,
in a concise but lively manner, some of the theological calamities which
afflicted the empire, and more especially the East, in the reign of a
prince who was the slave of his own passions, and of those of his eunuchs:
"Many were imprisoned, and persecuted, and driven into exile. Whole troops
of those who are styled heretics, were massacred, particularly at Cyzicus,
and at Samosata. In Paphlagonia, Bithynia, Galatia, and in many other
provinces, towns and villages were laid waste, and utterly destroyed."
While the flames of the Arian controversy consumed the vitals of the
empire, the African provinces were infested by their peculiar enemies, the
savage fanatics, who, under the name of Circumcellions,
formed the strength and scandal of the Donatist party. The severe
execution of the laws of Constantine had excited a spirit of discontent
and resistance, the strenuous efforts of his son Constans, to restore the
unity of the church, exasperated the sentiments of mutual hatred, which
had first occasioned the separation; and the methods of force and
corruption employed by the two Imperial commissioners, Paul and Macarius,
furnished the schismatics with a specious contrast between the maxims of
the apostles and the conduct of their pretended successors. The peasants
who inhabited the villages of Numidia and Mauritania, were a ferocious
race, who had been imperfectly reduced under the authority of the Roman
laws; who were imperfectly converted to the Christian faith; but who were
actuated by a blind and furious enthusiasm in the cause of their Donatist
teachers. They indignantly supported the exile of their bishops, the
demolition of their churches, and the interruption of their secret
assemblies. The violence of the officers of justice, who were usually
sustained by a military guard, was sometimes repelled with equal violence;
and the blood of some popular ecclesiastics, which had been shed in the
quarrel, inflamed their rude followers with an eager desire of revenging
the death of these holy martyrs. By their own cruelty and rashness, the
ministers of persecution sometimes provoked their fate; and the guilt of
an accidental tumult precipitated the criminals into despair and
rebellion. Driven from their native villages, the Donatist peasants
assembled in formidable gangs on the edge of the Getulian desert; and
readily exchanged the habits of labor for a life of idleness and rapine,
which was consecrated by the name of religion, and faintly condemned by
the doctors of the sect. The leaders of the Circumcellions assumed the
title of captains of the saints; their principal weapon, as they were
indifferently provided with swords and spears, was a huge and weighty
club, which they termed an Israelite; and the
well-known sound of "Praise be to God," which they used as their cry of
war, diffused consternation over the unarmed provinces of Africa. At first
their depredations were colored by the plea of necessity; but they soon
exceeded the measure of subsistence, indulged without control their
intemperance and avarice, burnt the villages which they had pillaged, and
reigned the licentious tyrants of the open country. The occupations of
husbandry, and the administration of justice, were interrupted; and as the
Circumcellions pretended to restore the primitive equality of mankind, and
to reform the abuses of civil society, they opened a secure asylum for the
slaves and debtors, who flocked in crowds to their holy standard. When
they were not resisted, they usually contented themselves with plunder,
but the slightest opposition provoked them to acts of violence and murder;
and some Catholic priests, who had imprudently signalized their zeal, were
tortured by the fanatics with the most refined and wanton barbarity. The
spirit of the Circumcellions was not always exerted against their
defenceless enemies; they engaged, and sometimes defeated, the troops of
the province; and in the bloody action of Bagai, they attacked in the open
field, but with unsuccessful valor, an advanced guard of the Imperial
cavalry. The Donatists who were taken in arms, received, and they soon
deserved, the same treatment which might have been shown to the wild
beasts of the desert. The captives died, without a murmur, either by the
sword, the axe, or the fire; and the measures of retaliation were
multiplied in a rapid proportion, which aggravated the horrors of
rebellion, and excluded the hope of mutual forgiveness. In the beginning
of the present century, the example of the Circumcellions has been renewed
in the persecution, the boldness, the crimes, and the enthusiasm of the
Camisards; and if the fanatics of Languedoc surpassed those of Numidia, by
their military achievements, the Africans maintained their fierce
independence with more resolution and perseverance.
Such disorders are the natural effects of religious tyranny, but the rage
of the Donatists was inflamed by a frenzy of a very extraordinary kind;
and which, if it really prevailed among them in so extravagant a degree,
cannot surely be paralleled in any country or in any age. Many of these
fanatics were possessed with the horror of life, and the desire of
martyrdom; and they deemed it of little moment by what means, or by what
hands, they perished, if their conduct was sanctified by the intention of
devoting themselves to the glory of the true faith, and the hope of
eternal happiness. Sometimes they rudely disturbed the festivals, and
profaned the temples of Paganism, with the design of exciting the most
zealous of the idolaters to revenge the insulted honor of their gods. They
sometimes forced their way into the courts of justice, and compelled the
affrighted judge to give orders for their immediate execution. They
frequently stopped travellers on the public highways, and obliged them to
inflict the stroke of martyrdom, by the promise of a reward, if they
consented, and by the threat of instant death, if they refused to grant so
very singular a favor. When they were disappointed of every other
resource, they announced the day on which, in the presence of their
friends and brethren, they should cast themselves headlong from some lofty
rock; and many precipices were shown, which had acquired fame by the
number of religious suicides. In the actions of these desperate
enthusiasts, who were admired by one party as the martyrs of God, and
abhorred by the other as the victims of Satan, an impartial philosopher
may discover the influence and the last abuse of that inflexible spirit
which was originally derived from the character and principles of the
Jewish nation.
The simple narrative of the intestine divisions, which distracted the
peace, and dishonored the triumph, of the church, will confirm the remark
of a Pagan historian, and justify the complaint of a venerable bishop. The
experience of Ammianus had convinced him, that the enmity of the
Christians towards each other, surpassed the fury of savage beasts against
man; and Gregory Nazianzen most pathetically laments, that the kingdom of
heaven was converted, by discord, into the image of chaos, of a nocturnal
tempest, and of hell itself. The fierce and partial writers of the times,
ascribing all virtue to themselves, and imputing
all guilt to their adversaries, have painted the
battle of the angels and dæmons. Our calmer reason will reject such
pure and perfect monsters of vice or sanctity, and will impute an equal,
or at least an indiscriminate, measure of good and evil to the hostile
sectaries, who assumed and bestowed the appellations of orthodox and
heretics. They had been educated in the same religion and the same civil
society. Their hopes and fears in the present, or in a future life, were
balanced in the same proportion. On either side, the error might be
innocent, the faith sincere, the practice meritorious or corrupt. Their
passions were excited by similar objects; and they might alternately abuse
the favor of the court, or of the people. The metaphysical opinions of the
Athanasians and the Arians could not influence their moral character; and
they were alike actuated by the intolerant spirit which has been extracted
from the pure and simple maxims of the gospel.
A modern writer, who, with a just confidence, has prefixed to his own
history the honorable epithets of political and philosophical, accuses the
timid prudence of Montesquieu, for neglecting to enumerate, among the
causes of the decline of the empire, a law of Constantine, by which the
exercise of the Pagan worship was absolutely suppressed, and a
considerable part of his subjects was left destitute of priests, of
temples, and of any public religion. The zeal of the philosophic historian
for the rights of mankind, has induced him to acquiesce in the ambiguous
testimony of those ecclesiastics, who have too lightly ascribed to their
favorite hero the merit of a general
persecution. Instead of alleging this imaginary law, which would have
blazed in the front of the Imperial codes, we may safely appeal to the
original epistle, which Constantine addressed to the followers of the
ancient religion; at a time when he no longer disguised his conversion,
nor dreaded the rivals of his throne. He invites and exhorts, in the most
pressing terms, the subjects of the Roman empire to imitate the example of
their master; but he declares, that those who still refuse to open their
eyes to the celestial light, may freely enjoy their temples and their
fancied gods. A report, that the ceremonies of paganism were suppressed,
is formally contradicted by the emperor himself, who wisely assigns, as
the principle of his moderation, the invincible force of habit, of
prejudice, and of superstition. Without violating the sanctity of his
promise, without alarming the fears of the Pagans, the artful monarch
advanced, by slow and cautious steps, to undermine the irregular and
decayed fabric of polytheism. The partial acts of severity which he
occasionally exercised, though they were secretly promoted by a Christian
zeal, were colored by the fairest pretences of justice and the public
good; and while Constantine designed to ruin the foundations, he seemed to
reform the abuses, of the ancient religion. After the example of the
wisest of his predecessors, he condemned, under the most rigorous
penalties, the occult and impious arts of divination; which excited the
vain hopes, and sometimes the criminal attempts, of those who were
discontented with their present condition. An ignominious silence was
imposed on the oracles, which had been publicly convicted of fraud and
falsehood; the effeminate priests of the Nile were abolished; and
Constantine discharged the duties of a Roman censor, when he gave orders
for the demolition of several temples of Phoenicia; in which every mode of
prostitution was devoutly practised in the face of day, and to the honor
of Venus. The Imperial city of Constantinople was, in some measure, raised
at the expense, and was adorned with the spoils, of the opulent temples of
Greece and Asia; the sacred property was confiscated; the statues of gods
and heroes were transported, with rude familiarity, among a people who
considered them as objects, not of adoration, but of curiosity; the gold
and silver were restored to circulation; and the magistrates, the bishops,
and the eunuchs, improved the fortunate occasion of gratifying, at once,
their zeal, their avarice, and their resentment. But these depredations
were confined to a small part of the Roman world; and the provinces had
been long since accustomed to endure the same sacrilegious rapine, from
the tyranny of princes and proconsuls, who could not be suspected of any
design to subvert the established religion.
The sons of Constantine trod in the footsteps of their father, with more
zeal, and with less discretion. The pretences of rapine and oppression
were insensibly multiplied; every indulgence was shown to the illegal
behavior of the Christians; every doubt was explained to the disadvantage
of Paganism; and the demolition of the temples was celebrated as one of
the auspicious events of the reign of Constans and Constantius. The name
of Constantius is prefixed to a concise law, which might have superseded
the necessity of any future prohibitions. "It is our pleasure, that in all
places, and in all cities, the temples be immediately shut, and carefully
guarded, that none may have the power of offending. It is likewise our
pleasure, that all our subjects should abstain from sacrifices. If any one
should be guilty of such an act, let him feel the sword of vengeance, and
after his execution, let his property be confiscated to the public use. We
denounce the same penalties against the governors of the provinces, if
they neglect to punish the criminals." But there is the strongest reason
to believe, that this formidable edict was either composed without being
published, or was published without being executed. The evidence of facts,
and the monuments which are still extant of brass and marble, continue to
prove the public exercise of the Pagan worship during the whole reign of
the sons of Constantine. In the East, as well as in the West, in cities,
as well as in the country, a great number of temples were respected, or at
least were spared; and the devout multitude still enjoyed the luxury of
sacrifices, of festivals, and of processions, by the permission, or by the
connivance, of the civil government. About four years after the supposed
date of this bloody edict, Constantius visited the temples of Rome; and
the decency of his behavior is recommended by a pagan orator as an example
worthy of the imitation of succeeding princes. "That emperor," says
Symmachus, "suffered the privileges of the vestal virgins to remain
inviolate; he bestowed the sacerdotal dignities on the nobles of Rome,
granted the customary allowance to defray the expenses of the public rites
and sacrifices; and, though he had embraced a different religion, he never
attempted to deprive the empire of the sacred worship of antiquity." The
senate still presumed to consecrate, by solemn decrees, the divine memory
of their sovereigns; and Constantine himself was associated, after his
death, to those gods whom he had renounced and insulted during his life.
The title, the ensigns, the prerogatives, of sovereign pontiff, which had
been instituted by Numa, and assumed by Augustus, were accepted, without
hesitation, by seven Christian emperors; who were invested with a more
absolute authority over the religion which they had deserted, than over
that which they professed.
The divisions of Christianity suspended the ruin of Paganism;
and the holy war against the infidels was less vigorously prosecuted by
princes and bishops, who were more immediately alarmed by the guilt and
danger of domestic rebellion. The extirpation of idolatry
might have been justified by the established principles of intolerance:
but the hostile sects, which alternately reigned in the Imperial court
were mutually apprehensive of alienating, and perhaps exasperating, the
minds of a powerful, though declining faction. Every motive of authority
and fashion, of interest and reason, now militated on the side of
Christianity; but two or three generations elapsed, before their
victorious influence was universally felt. The religion which had so long
and so lately been established in the Roman empire was still revered by a
numerous people, less attached indeed to speculative opinion, than to
ancient custom. The honors of the state and army were indifferently
bestowed on all the subjects of Constantine and Constantius; and a
considerable portion of knowledge and wealth and valor was still engaged
in the service of polytheism. The superstition of the senator and of the
peasant, of the poet and the philosopher, was derived from very different
causes, but they met with equal devotion in the temples of the gods. Their
zeal was insensibly provoked by the insulting triumph of a proscribed
sect; and their hopes were revived by the well-grounded confidence, that
the presumptive heir of the empire, a young and valiant hero, who had
delivered Gaul from the arms of the Barbarians, had secretly embraced the
religion of his ancestors.
Julian Is Declared Emperor By The Legions Of Gaul.—His March And Success.—The Death Of Constantius.—Civil Administration Of Julian.
While the Romans languished under the ignominious tyranny of eunuchs and
bishops, the praises of Julian were repeated with transport in every part
of the empire, except in the palace of Constantius. The barbarians of
Germany had felt, and still dreaded, the arms of the young Cæsar;
his soldiers were the companions of his victory; the grateful provincials
enjoyed the blessings of his reign; but the favorites, who had opposed his
elevation, were offended by his virtues; and they justly considered the
friend of the people as the enemy of the court. As long as the fame of
Julian was doubtful, the buffoons of the palace, who were skilled in the
language of satire, tried the efficacy of those arts which they had so
often practised with success. They easily discovered, that his simplicity
was not exempt from affectation: the ridiculous epithets of a hairy
savage, of an ape invested with the purple, were applied to the dress and
person of the philosophic warrior; and his modest despatches were
stigmatized as the vain and elaborate fictions of a loquacious Greek, a
speculative soldier, who had studied the art of war amidst the groves of
the academy. The voice of malicious folly was at length silenced by the
shouts of victory; the conqueror of the Franks and Alemanni could no
longer be painted as an object of contempt; and the monarch himself was
meanly ambitious of stealing from his lieutenant the honorable reward of
his labors. In the letters crowned with laurel, which, according to
ancient custom, were addressed to the provinces, the name of Julian was
omitted. "Constantius had made his dispositions in person; he
had signalized his valor in the foremost ranks; his
military conduct had secured the victory; and the captive king of the
barbarians was presented to him on the field of
battle," from which he was at that time distant about forty days' journey.
So extravagant a fable was incapable, however, of deceiving the public
credulity, or even of satisfying the pride of the emperor himself.
Secretly conscious that the applause and favor of the Romans accompanied
the rising fortunes of Julian, his discontented mind was prepared to
receive the subtle poison of those artful sycophants, who colored their
mischievous designs with the fairest appearances of truth and candor.
Instead of depreciating the merits of Julian, they acknowledged, and even
exaggerated, his popular fame, superior talents, and important services.
But they darkly insinuated, that the virtues of the Cæsar might
instantly be converted into the most dangerous crimes, if the inconstant
multitude should prefer their inclinations to their duty; or if the
general of a victorious army should be tempted from his allegiance by the
hopes of revenge and independent greatness. The personal fears of
Constantius were interpreted by his council as a laudable anxiety for the
public safety; whilst in private, and perhaps in his own breast, he
disguised, under the less odious appellation of fear, the sentiments of
hatred and envy, which he had secretly conceived for the inimitable
virtues of Julian.
The apparent tranquillity of Gaul, and the imminent danger of the eastern
provinces, offered a specious pretence for the design which was artfully
concerted by the Imperial ministers. They resolved to disarm the Cæsar;
to recall those faithful troops who guarded his person and dignity; and to
employ, in a distant war against the Persian monarch, the hardy veterans
who had vanquished, on the banks of the Rhine, the fiercest nations of
Germany. While Julian used the laborious hours of his winter quarters at
Paris in the administration of power, which, in his hands, was the
exercise of virtue, he was surprised by the hasty arrival of a tribune and
a notary, with positive orders, from the emperor, which they
were directed to execute, and he was commanded
not to oppose. Constantius signified his pleasure, that four entire
legions, the Celtæ, and Petulants, the Heruli, and the Batavians,
should be separated from the standard of Julian, under which they had
acquired their fame and discipline; that in each of the remaining bands
three hundred of the bravest youths should be selected; and that this
numerous detachment, the strength of the Gallic army, should instantly
begin their march, and exert their utmost diligence to arrive, before the
opening of the campaign, on the frontiers of Persia. The Cæsar
foresaw and lamented the consequences of this fatal mandate. Most of the
auxiliaries, who engaged their voluntary service, had stipulated, that
they should never be obliged to pass the Alps. The public faith of Rome,
and the personal honor of Julian, had been pledged for the observance of
this condition. Such an act of treachery and oppression would destroy the
confidence, and excite the resentment, of the independent warriors of
Germany, who considered truth as the noblest of their virtues, and freedom
as the most valuable of their possessions. The legionaries, who enjoyed
the title and privileges of Romans, were enlisted for the general defence
of the republic; but those mercenary troops heard with cold indifference
the antiquated names of the republic and of Rome. Attached, either from
birth or long habit, to the climate and manners of Gaul, they loved and
admired Julian; they despised, and perhaps hated, the emperor; they
dreaded the laborious march, the Persian arrows, and the burning deserts
of Asia. They claimed as their own the country which they had saved; and
excused their want of spirit, by pleading the sacred and more immediate
duty of protecting their families and friends. The apprehensions of the
Gauls were derived from the knowledge of the impending and inevitable
danger. As soon as the provinces were exhausted of their military
strength, the Germans would violate a treaty which had been imposed on
their fears; and notwithstanding the abilities and valor of Julian, the
general of a nominal army, to whom the public calamities would be imputed,
must find himself, after a vain resistance, either a prisoner in the camp
of the barbarians, or a criminal in the palace of Constantius. If Julian
complied with the orders which he had received, he subscribed his own
destruction, and that of a people who deserved his affection. But a
positive refusal was an act of rebellion, and a declaration of war. The
inexorable jealousy of the emperor, the peremptory, and perhaps insidious,
nature of his commands, left not any room for a fair apology, or candid
interpretation; and the dependent station of the Cæsar scarcely
allowed him to pause or to deliberate. Solitude increased the perplexity
of Julian; he could no longer apply to the faithful counsels of Sallust,
who had been removed from his office by the judicious malice of the
eunuchs: he could not even enforce his representations by the concurrence
of the ministers, who would have been afraid or ashamed to approve the
ruin of Gaul. The moment had been chosen, when Lupicinus, the general of
the cavalry, was despatched into Britain, to repulse the inroads of the
Scots and Picts; and Florentius was occupied at Vienna by the assessment
of the tribute. The latter, a crafty and corrupt statesman, declining to
assume a responsible part on this dangerous occasion, eluded the pressing
and repeated invitations of Julian, who represented to him, that in every
important measure, the presence of the præfect was indispensable in
the council of the prince. In the mean while the Cæsar was oppressed
by the rude and importunate solicitations of the Imperial messengers, who
presumed to suggest, that if he expected the return of his ministers, he
would charge himself with the guilt of the delay, and reserve for them the
merit of the execution. Unable to resist, unwilling to comply, Julian
expressed, in the most serious terms, his wish, and even his intention, of
resigning the purple, which he could not preserve with honor, but which he
could not abdicate with safety.
After a painful conflict, Julian was compelled to acknowledge, that
obedience was the virtue of the most eminent subject, and that the
sovereign alone was entitled to judge of the public welfare. He issued the
necessary orders for carrying into execution the commands of Constantius;
a part of the troops began their march for the Alps; and the detachments
from the several garrisons moved towards their respective places of
assembly. They advanced with difficulty through the trembling and
affrighted crowds of provincials, who attempted to excite their pity by
silent despair, or loud lamentations, while the wives of the soldiers,
holding their infants in their arms, accused the desertion of their
husbands, in the mixed language of grief, of tenderness, and of
indignation. This scene of general distress afflicted the humanity of the
Cæsar; he granted a sufficient number of post-wagons to transport
the wives and families of the soldiers, endeavored to alleviate the
hardships which he was constrained to inflict, and increased, by the most
laudable arts, his own popularity, and the discontent of the exiled
troops. The grief of an armed multitude is soon converted into rage; their
licentious murmurs, which every hour were communicated from tent to tent
with more boldness and effect, prepared their minds for the most daring
acts of sedition; and by the connivance of their tribunes, a seasonable
libel was secretly dispersed, which painted in lively colors the disgrace
of the Cæsar, the oppression of the Gallic army, and the feeble
vices of the tyrant of Asia. The servants of Constantius were astonished
and alarmed by the progress of this dangerous spirit. They pressed the Cæsar
to hasten the departure of the troops; but they imprudently rejected the
honest and judicious advice of Julian; who proposed that they should not
march through Paris, and suggested the danger and temptation of a last
interview.
As soon as the approach of the troops was announced, the Cæsar went
out to meet them, and ascended his tribunal, which had been erected in a
plain before the gates of the city. After distinguishing the officers and
soldiers, who by their rank or merit deserved a peculiar attention, Julian
addressed himself in a studied oration to the surrounding multitude: he
celebrated their exploits with grateful applause; encouraged them to
accept, with alacrity, the honor of serving under the eye of a powerful
and liberal monarch; and admonished them, that the commands of Augustus
required an instant and cheerful obedience. The soldiers, who were
apprehensive of offending their general by an indecent clamor, or of
belying their sentiments by false and venal acclamations, maintained an
obstinate silence; and after a short pause, were dismissed to their
quarters. The principal officers were entertained by the Cæsar, who
professed, in the warmest language of friendship, his desire and his
inability to reward, according to their deserts, the brave companions of
his victories. They retired from the feast, full of grief and perplexity;
and lamented the hardship of their fate, which tore them from their
beloved general and their native country. The only expedient which could
prevent their separation was boldly agitated and approved; the popular
resentment was insensibly moulded into a regular conspiracy; their just
reasons of complaint were heightened by passion, and their passions were
inflamed by wine; as, on the eve of their departure, the troops were
indulged in licentious festivity. At the hour of midnight, the impetuous
multitude, with swords, and bows, and torches in their hands, rushed into
the suburbs; encompassed the palace; and, careless of future dangers,
pronounced the fatal and irrevocable words, Julian Augustus! The prince,
whose anxious suspense was interrupted by their disorderly acclamations,
secured the doors against their intrusion; and as long as it was in his
power, secluded his person and dignity from the accidents of a nocturnal
tumult. At the dawn of day, the soldiers, whose zeal was irritated by
opposition, forcibly entered the palace, seized, with respectful violence,
the object of their choice, guarded Julian with drawn swords through the
streets of Paris, placed him on the tribunal, and with repeated shouts
saluted him as their emperor. Prudence, as well as loyalty, inculcated the
propriety of resisting their treasonable designs; and of preparing, for
his oppressed virtue, the excuse of violence. Addressing himself by turns
to the multitude and to individuals, he sometimes implored their mercy,
and sometimes expressed his indignation; conjured them not to sully the
fame of their immortal victories; and ventured to promise, that if they
would immediately return to their allegiance, he would undertake to obtain
from the emperor not only a free and gracious pardon, but even the
revocation of the orders which had excited their resentment. But the
soldiers, who were conscious of their guilt, chose rather to depend on the
gratitude of Julian, than on the clemency of the emperor. Their zeal was
insensibly turned into impatience, and their impatience into rage. The
inflexible Cæsar sustained, till the third hour of the day, their
prayers, their reproaches, and their menaces; nor did he yield, till he
had been repeatedly assured, that if he wished to live, he must consent to
reign. He was exalted on a shield in the presence, and amidst the
unanimous acclamations, of the troops; a rich military collar, which was
offered by chance, supplied the want of a diadem; the ceremony was
concluded by the promise of a moderate donative; and the new emperor,
overwhelmed with real or affected grief retired into the most secret
recesses of his apartment.
The grief of Julian could proceed only from his innocence; out his
innocence must appear extremely doubtful in the eyes of those who have
learned to suspect the motives and the professions of princes. His lively
and active mind was susceptible of the various impressions of hope and
fear, of gratitude and revenge, of duty and of ambition, of the love of
fame, and of the fear of reproach. But it is impossible for us to
calculate the respective weight and operation of these sentiments; or to
ascertain the principles of action which might escape the observation,
while they guided, or rather impelled, the steps of Julian himself. The
discontent of the troops was produced by the malice of his enemies; their
tumult was the natural effect of interest and of passion; and if Julian
had tried to conceal a deep design under the appearances of chance, he
must have employed the most consummate artifice without necessity, and
probably without success. He solemnly declares, in the presence of
Jupiter, of the Sun, of Mars, of Minerva, and of all the other deities,
that till the close of the evening which preceded his elevation, he was
utterly ignorant of the designs of the soldiers; and it may seem
ungenerous to distrust the honor of a hero and the truth of a philosopher.
Yet the superstitious confidence that Constantius was the enemy, and that
he himself was the favorite, of the gods, might prompt him to desire, to
solicit, and even to hasten the auspicious moment of his reign, which was
predestined to restore the ancient religion of mankind. When Julian had
received the intelligence of the conspiracy, he resigned himself to a
short slumber; and afterwards related to his friends that he had seen the
genius of the empire waiting with some impatience at his door, pressing
for admittance, and reproaching his want of spirit and ambition.
Astonished and perplexed, he addressed his prayers to the great Jupiter,
who immediately signified, by a clear and manifest omen, that he should
submit to the will of heaven and of the army. The conduct which disclaims
the ordinary maxims of reason, excites our suspicion and eludes our
inquiry. Whenever the spirit of fanaticism, at once so credulous and so
crafty, has insinuated itself into a noble mind, it insensibly corrodes
the vital principles of virtue and veracity.
To moderate the zeal of his party, to protect the persons of his enemies,
to defeat and to despise the secret enterprises which were formed against
his life and dignity, were the cares which employed the first days of the
reign of the new emperor. Although he was firmly resolved to maintain the
station which he had assumed, he was still desirous of saving his country
from the calamities of civil war, of declining a contest with the superior
forces of Constantius, and of preserving his own character from the
reproach of perfidy and ingratitude. Adorned with the ensigns of military
and imperial pomp, Julian showed himself in the field of Mars to the
soldiers, who glowed with ardent enthusiasm in the cause of their pupil,
their leader, and their friend. He recapitulated their victories, lamented
their sufferings, applauded their resolution, animated their hopes, and
checked their impetuosity; nor did he dismiss the assembly, till he had
obtained a solemn promise from the troops, that if the emperor of the East
would subscribe an equitable treaty, they would renounce any views of
conquest, and satisfy themselves with the tranquil possession of the
Gallic provinces. On this foundation he composed, in his own name, and in
that of the army, a specious and moderate epistle, which was delivered to
Pentadius, his master of the offices, and to his chamberlain Eutherius;
two ambassadors whom he appointed to receive the answer, and observe the
dispositions of Constantius. This epistle is inscribed with the modest
appellation of Cæsar; but Julian solicits in a peremptory, though
respectful, manner, the confirmation of the title of Augustus. He
acknowledges the irregularity of his own election, while he justifies, in
some measure, the resentment and violence of the troops which had extorted
his reluctant consent. He allows the supremacy of his brother Constantius;
and engages to send him an annual present of Spanish horses, to recruit
his army with a select number of barbarian youths, and to accept from his
choice a Prætorian præfect of approved discretion and
fidelity. But he reserves for himself the nomination of his other civil
and military officers, with the troops, the revenue, and the sovereignty
of the provinces beyond the Alps. He admonishes the emperor to consult the
dictates of justice; to distrust the arts of those venal flatterers, who
subsist only by the discord of princes; and to embrace the offer of a fair
and honorable treaty, equally advantageous to the republic and to the
house of Constantine. In this negotiation Julian claimed no more than he
already possessed. The delegated authority which he had long exercised
over the provinces of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, was still obeyed under a
name more independent and august. The soldiers and the people rejoiced in
a revolution which was not stained even with the blood of the guilty.
Florentius was a fugitive; Lupicinus a prisoner. The persons who were
disaffected to the new government were disarmed and secured; and the
vacant offices were distributed, according to the recommendation of merit,
by a prince who despised the intrigues of the palace, and the clamors of
the soldiers.
The negotiations of peace were accompanied and supported by the most
vigorous preparations for war. The army, which Julian held in readiness
for immediate action, was recruited and augmented by the disorders of the
times. The cruel persecutions of the faction of Magnentius had filled Gaul
with numerous bands of outlaws and robbers. They cheerfully accepted the
offer of a general pardon from a prince whom they could trust, submitted
to the restraints of military discipline, and retained only their
implacable hatred to the person and government of Constantius. As soon as
the season of the year permitted Julian to take the field, he appeared at
the head of his legions; threw a bridge over the Rhine in the neighborhood
of Cleves; and prepared to chastise the perfidy of the Attuarii, a tribe
of Franks, who presumed that they might ravage, with impunity, the
frontiers of a divided empire. The difficulty, as well as glory, of this
enterprise, consisted in a laborious march; and Julian had conquered, as
soon as he could penetrate into a country, which former princes had
considered as inaccessible. After he had given peace to the Barbarians,
the emperor carefully visited the fortifications along the Rhine from
Cleves to Basil; surveyed, with peculiar attention, the territories which
he had recovered from the hands of the Alemanni, passed through Besançon,
which had severely suffered from their fury, and fixed his headquarters at
Vienna for the ensuing winter. The barrier of Gaul was improved and
strengthened with additional fortifications; and Julian entertained some
hopes that the Germans, whom he had so often vanquished, might, in his
absence, be restrained by the terror of his name. Vadomair was the only
prince of the Alemanni whom he esteemed or feared and while the subtle
Barbarian affected to observe the faith of treaties, the progress of his
arms threatened the state with an unseasonable and dangerous war. The
policy of Julian condescended to surprise the prince of the Alemanni by
his own arts: and Vadomair, who, in the character of a friend, had
incautiously accepted an invitation from the Roman governors, was seized
in the midst of the entertainment, and sent away prisoner into the heart
of Spain. Before the Barbarians were recovered from their amazement, the
emperor appeared in arms on the banks of the Rhine, and, once more
crossing the river, renewed the deep impressions of terror and respect
which had been already made by four preceding expeditions.
The ambassadors of Julian had been instructed to execute, with the utmost
diligence, their important commission. But, in their passage through Italy
and Illyricum, they were detained by the tedious and affected delays of
the provincial governors; they were conducted by slow journeys from
Constantinople to Cæsarea in Cappadocia; and when at length they
were admitted to the presence of Constantius, they found that he had
already conceived, from the despatches of his own officers, the most
unfavorable opinion of the conduct of Julian, and of the Gallic army. The
letters were heard with impatience; the trembling messengers were
dismissed with indignation and contempt; and the looks, gestures, the
furious language of the monarch, expressed the disorder of his soul. The
domestic connection, which might have reconciled the brother and the
husband of Helena, was recently dissolved by the death of that princess,
whose pregnancy had been several times fruitless, and was at last fatal to
herself. The empress Eusebia had preserved, to the last moment of her
life, the warm, and even jealous, affection which she had conceived for
Julian; and her mild influence might have moderated the resentment of a
prince, who, since her death, was abandoned to his own passions, and to
the arts of his eunuchs. But the terror of a foreign invasion obliged him
to suspend the punishment of a private enemy: he continued his march
towards the confines of Persia, and thought it sufficient to signify the
conditions which might entitle Julian and his guilty followers to the
clemency of their offended sovereign. He required, that the presumptuous Cæsar
should expressly renounce the appellation and rank of Augustus, which he
had accepted from the rebels; that he should descend to his former station
of a limited and dependent minister; that he should vest the powers of the
state and army in the hands of those officers who were appointed by the
Imperial court; and that he should trust his safety to the assurances of
pardon, which were announced by Epictetus, a Gallic bishop, and one of the
Arian favorites of Constantius. Several months were ineffectually consumed
in a treaty which was negotiated at the distance of three thousand miles
between Paris and Antioch; and, as soon as Julian perceived that his
modest and respectful behavior served only to irritate the pride of an
implacable adversary, he boldly resolved to commit his life and fortune to
the chance of a civil war. He gave a public and military audience to the
quæstor Leonas: the haughty epistle of Constantius was read to the
attentive multitude; and Julian protested, with the most flattering
deference, that he was ready to resign the title of Augustus, if he could
obtain the consent of those whom he acknowledged as the authors of his
elevation. The faint proposal was impetuously silenced; and the
acclamations of "Julian Augustus, continue to reign, by the authority of
the army, of the people, of the republic which you have saved," thundered
at once from every part of the field, and terrified the pale ambassador of
Constantius. A part of the letter was afterwards read, in which the
emperor arraigned the ingratitude of Julian, whom he had invested with the
honors of the purple; whom he had educated with so much care and
tenderness; whom he had preserved in his infancy, when he was left a
helpless orphan. "An orphan!" interrupted Julian, who justified his cause
by indulging his passions: "does the assassin of my family reproach me
that I was left an orphan? He urges me to revenge those injuries which I
have long studied to forget." The assembly was dismissed; and Leonas, who,
with some difficulty, had been protected from the popular fury, was sent
back to his master with an epistle, in which Julian expressed, in a strain
of the most vehement eloquence, the sentiments of contempt, of hatred, and
of resentment, which had been suppressed and imbittered by the
dissimulation of twenty years. After this message, which might be
considered as a signal of irreconcilable war, Julian, who, some weeks
before, had celebrated the Christian festival of the Epiphany, made a
public declaration that he committed the care of his safety to the
Immortal Gods; and thus publicly renounced the religion as well as the
friendship of Constantius.
The situation of Julian required a vigorous and immediate resolution. He
had discovered, from intercepted letters, that his adversary, sacrificing
the interest of the state to that of the monarch, had again excited the
Barbarians to invade the provinces of the West. The position of two
magazines, one of them collected on the banks of the Lake of Constance,
the other formed at the foot of the Cottian Alps, seemed to indicate the
march of two armies; and the size of those magazines, each of which
consisted of six hundred thousand quarters of wheat, or rather flour, was
a threatening evidence of the strength and numbers of the enemy who
prepared to surround him. But the Imperial legions were still in their
distant quarters of Asia; the Danube was feebly guarded; and if Julian
could occupy, by a sudden incursion, the important provinces of Illyricum,
he might expect that a people of soldiers would resort to his standard,
and that the rich mines of gold and silver would contribute to the
expenses of the civil war. He proposed this bold enterprise to the
assembly of the soldiers; inspired them with a just confidence in their
general, and in themselves; and exhorted them to maintain their reputation
of being terrible to the enemy, moderate to their fellow-citizens, and
obedient to their officers. His spirited discourse was received with the
loudest acclamations, and the same troops which had taken up arms against
Constantius, when he summoned them to leave Gaul, now declared with
alacrity, that they would follow Julian to the farthest extremities of
Europe or Asia. The oath of fidelity was administered; and the soldiers,
clashing their shields, and pointing their drawn swords to their throats,
devoted themselves, with horrid imprecations, to the service of a leader
whom they celebrated as the deliverer of Gaul and the conqueror of the
Germans. This solemn engagement, which seemed to be dictated by affection
rather than by duty, was singly opposed by Nebridius, who had been
admitted to the office of Prætorian præfect. That faithful
minister, alone and unassisted, asserted the rights of Constantius, in the
midst of an armed and angry multitude, to whose fury he had almost fallen
an honorable, but useless sacrifice. After losing one of his hands by the
stroke of a sword, he embraced the knees of the prince whom he had
offended. Julian covered the præfect with his Imperial mantle, and,
protecting him from the zeal of his followers, dismissed him to his own
house, with less respect than was perhaps due to the virtue of an enemy.
The high office of Nebridius was bestowed on Sallust; and the provinces of
Gaul, which were now delivered from the intolerable oppression of taxes,
enjoyed the mild and equitable administration of the friend of Julian, who
was permitted to practise those virtues which he had instilled into the
mind of his pupil.
The hopes of Julian depended much less on the number of his troops, than
on the celerity of his motions. In the execution of a daring enterprise,
he availed himself of every precaution, as far as prudence could suggest;
and where prudence could no longer accompany his steps, he trusted the
event to valor and to fortune. In the neighborhood of Basil he assembled
and divided his army. One body, which consisted of ten thousand men, was
directed under the command of Nevitta, general of the cavalry, to advance
through the midland parts of Rhætia and Noricum. A similar division
of troops, under the orders of Jovius and Jovinus, prepared to follow the
oblique course of the highways, through the Alps, and the northern
confines of Italy. The instructions to the generals were conceived with
energy and precision: to hasten their march in close and compact columns,
which, according to the disposition of the ground, might readily be
changed into any order of battle; to secure themselves against the
surprises of the night by strong posts and vigilant guards; to prevent
resistance by their unexpected arrival; to elude examination by their
sudden departure; to spread the opinion of their strength, and the terror
of his name; and to join their sovereign under the walls of Sirmium. For
himself Julian had reserved a more difficult and extraordinary part. He
selected three thousand brave and active volunteers, resolved, like their
leader, to cast behind them every hope of a retreat; at the head of this
faithful band, he fearlessly plunged into the recesses of the Marcian, or
Black Forest, which conceals the sources of the Danube; and, for many
days, the fate of Julian was unknown to the world. The secrecy of his
march, his diligence, and vigor, surmounted every obstacle; he forced his
way over mountains and morasses, occupied the bridges or swam the rivers,
pursued his direct course, without reflecting whether he traversed the
territory of the Romans or of the Barbarians, and at length emerged,
between Ratisbon and Vienna, at the place where he designed to embark his
troops on the Danube. By a well-concerted stratagem, he seized a fleet of
light brigantines, as it lay at anchor; secured a apply of coarse
provisions sufficient to satisfy the indelicate, and voracious, appetite
of a Gallic army; and boldly committed himself to the stream of the
Danube. The labors of the mariners, who plied their oars with incessant
diligence, and the steady continuance of a favorable wind, carried his
fleet above seven hundred miles in eleven days; and he had already
disembarked his troops at Bononia, * only nineteen miles from Sirmium,
before his enemies could receive any certain intelligence that he had left
the banks of the Rhine. In the course of this long and rapid navigation,
the mind of Julian was fixed on the object of his enterprise; and though
he accepted the deputations of some cities, which hastened to claim the
merit of an early submission, he passed before the hostile stations, which
were placed along the river, without indulging the temptation of
signalizing a useless and ill-timed valor. The banks of the Danube were
crowded on either side with spectators, who gazed on the military pomp,
anticipated the importance of the event, and diffused through the adjacent
country the fame of a young hero, who advanced with more than mortal speed
at the head of the innumerable forces of the West. Lucilian, who, with the
rank of general of the cavalry, commanded the military powers of
Illyricum, was alarmed and perplexed by the doubtful reports, which he
could neither reject nor believe. He had taken some slow and irresolute
measures for the purpose of collecting his troops, when he was surprised
by Dagalaiphus, an active officer, whom Julian, as soon as he landed at
Bononia, had pushed forwards with some light infantry. The captive
general, uncertain of his life or death, was hastily thrown upon a horse,
and conducted to the presence of Julian; who kindly raised him from the
ground, and dispelled the terror and amazement which seemed to stupefy his
faculties. But Lucilian had no sooner recovered his spirits, than he
betrayed his want of discretion, by presuming to admonish his conqueror
that he had rashly ventured, with a handful of men, to expose his person
in the midst of his enemies. "Reserve for your master Constantius these
timid remonstrances," replied Julian, with a smile of contempt: "when I
gave you my purple to kiss, I received you not as a counsellor, but as a
suppliant." Conscious that success alone could justify his attempt, and
that boldness only could command success, he instantly advanced, at the
head of three thousand soldiers, to attack the strongest and most populous
city of the Illyrian provinces. As he entered the long suburb of Sirmium,
he was received by the joyful acclamations of the army and people; who,
crowned with flowers, and holding lighted tapers in their hands, conducted
their acknowledged sovereign to his Imperial residence. Two days were
devoted to the public joy, which was celebrated by the games of the
circus; but, early on the morning of the third day, Julian marched to
occupy the narrow pass of Succi, in the defiles of Mount Hæmus;
which, almost in the midway between Sirmium and Constantinople, separates
the provinces of Thrace and Dacia, by an abrupt descent towards the
former, and a gentle declivity on the side of the latter. The defence of
this important post was intrusted to the brave Nevitta; who, as well as
the generals of the Italian division, successfully executed the plan of
the march and junction which their master had so ably conceived.
The homage which Julian obtained, from the fears or the inclination of the
people, extended far beyond the immediate effect of his arms. The præfectures
of Italy and Illyricum were administered by Taurus and Florentius, who
united that important office with the vain honors of the consulship; and
as those magistrates had retired with precipitation to the court of Asia,
Julian, who could not always restrain the levity of his temper,
stigmatized their flight by adding, in all the Acts of the Year, the
epithet of fugitive to the names of the two
consuls. The provinces which had been deserted by their first magistrates
acknowledged the authority of an emperor, who, conciliating the qualities
of a soldier with those of a philosopher, was equally admired in the camps
of the Danube and in the cities of Greece. From his palace, or, more
properly, from his head-quarters of Sirmium and Naissus, he distributed to
the principal cities of the empire, a labored apology for his own conduct;
published the secret despatches of Constantius; and solicited the judgment
of mankind between two competitors, the one of whom had expelled, and the
other had invited, the Barbarians. Julian, whose mind was deeply wounded
by the reproach of ingratitude, aspired to maintain, by argument as well
as by arms, the superior merits of his cause; and to excel, not only in
the arts of war, but in those of composition. His epistle to the senate
and people of Athens seems to have been dictated by an elegant enthusiasm;
which prompted him to submit his actions and his motives to the degenerate
Athenians of his own times, with the same humble deference as if he had
been pleading, in the days of Aristides, before the tribunal of the
Areopagus. His application to the senate of Rome, which was still
permitted to bestow the titles of Imperial power, was agreeable to the
forms of the expiring republic. An assembly was summoned by Tertullus, præfect
of the city; the epistle of Julian was read; and, as he appeared to be
master of Italy his claims were admitted without a dissenting voice. His
oblique censure of the innovations of Constantine, and his passionate
invective against the vices of Constantius, were heard with less
satisfaction; and the senate, as if Julian had been present, unanimously
exclaimed, "Respect, we beseech you, the author of your own fortune." An
artful expression, which, according to the chance of war, might be
differently explained; as a manly reproof of the ingratitude of the
usurper, or as a flattering confession, that a single act of such benefit
to the state ought to atone for all the failings of Constantius.
The intelligence of the march and rapid progress of Julian was speedily
transmitted to his rival, who, by the retreat of Sapor, had obtained some
respite from the Persian war. Disguising the anguish of his soul under the
semblance of contempt, Constantius professed his intention of returning
into Europe, and of giving chase to Julian; for he never spoke of his
military expedition in any other light than that of a hunting party. In
the camp of Hierapolis, in Syria, he communicated this design to his army;
slightly mentioned the guilt and rashness of the Cæsar; and ventured
to assure them, that if the mutineers of Gaul presumed to meet them in the
field, they would be unable to sustain the fire of their eyes, and the
irresistible weight of their shout of onset. The speech of the emperor was
received with military applause, and Theodotus, the president of the
council of Hierapolis, requested, with tears of adulation, that his city
might be adorned with the head of the vanquished rebel. A chosen
detachment was despatched away in post-wagons, to secure, if it were yet
possible, the pass of Succi; the recruits, the horses, the arms, and the
magazines, which had been prepared against Sapor, were appropriated to the
service of the civil war; and the domestic victories of Constantius
inspired his partisans with the most sanguine assurances of success. The
notary Gaudentius had occupied in his name the provinces of Africa; the
subsistence of Rome was intercepted; and the distress of Julian was
increased by an unexpected event, which might have been productive of
fatal consequences. Julian had received the submission of two legions and
a cohort of archers, who were stationed at Sirmium; but he suspected, with
reason, the fidelity of those troops which had been distinguished by the
emperor; and it was thought expedient, under the pretence of the exposed
state of the Gallic frontier, to dismiss them from the most important
scene of action. They advanced, with reluctance, as far as the confines of
Italy; but as they dreaded the length of the way, and the savage
fierceness of the Germans, they resolved, by the instigation of one of
their tribunes, to halt at Aquileia, and to erect the banners of
Constantius on the walls of that impregnable city. The vigilance of Julian
perceived at once the extent of the mischief, and the necessity of
applying an immediate remedy. By his order, Jovinus led back a part of the
army into Italy; and the siege of Aquileia was formed with diligence, and
prosecuted with vigor. But the legionaries, who seemed to have rejected
the yoke of discipline, conducted the defence of the place with skill and
perseverance; invited the rest of Italy to imitate the example of their
courage and loyalty; and threatened the retreat of Julian, if he should be
forced to yield to the superior numbers of the armies of the East.
But the humanity of Julian was preserved from the cruel alternative which
he pathetically laments, of destroying or of being himself destroyed: and
the seasonable death of Constantius delivered the Roman empire from the
calamities of civil war. The approach of winter could not detain the
monarch at Antioch; and his favorites durst not oppose his impatient
desire of revenge. A slight fever, which was perhaps occasioned by the
agitation of his spirits, was increased by the fatigues of the journey;
and Constantius was obliged to halt at the little town of Mopsucrene,
twelve miles beyond Tarsus, where he expired, after a short illness, in
the forty-fifth year of his age, and the twenty-fourth of his reign. His
genuine character, which was composed of pride and weakness, of
superstition and cruelty, has been fully displayed in the preceding
narrative of civil and ecclesiastical events. The long abuse of power
rendered him a considerable object in the eyes of his contemporaries; but
as personal merit can alone deserve the notice of posterity, the last of
the sons of Constantine may be dismissed from the world, with the remark,
that he inherited the defects, without the abilities, of his father.
Before Constantius expired, he is said to have named Julian for his
successor; nor does it seem improbable, that his anxious concern for the
fate of a young and tender wife, whom he left with child, may have
prevailed, in his last moments, over the harsher passions of hatred and
revenge. Eusebius, and his guilty associates, made a faint attempt to
prolong the reign of the eunuchs, by the election of another emperor; but
their intrigues were rejected with disdain, by an army which now abhorred
the thought of civil discord; and two officers of rank were instantly
despatched, to assure Julian, that every sword in the empire would be
drawn for his service. The military designs of that prince, who had formed
three different attacks against Thrace, were prevented by this fortunate
event. Without shedding the blood of his fellow-citizens, he escaped the
dangers of a doubtful conflict, and acquired the advantages of a complete
victory. Impatient to visit the place of his birth, and the new capital of
the empire, he advanced from Naissus through the mountains of Hæmus,
and the cities of Thrace. When he reached Heraclea, at the distance of
sixty miles, all Constantinople was poured forth to receive him; and he
made his triumphal entry amidst the dutiful acclamations of the soldiers,
the people, and the senate. An innumerable multitude pressed around him
with eager respect and were perhaps disappointed when they beheld the
small stature and simple garb of a hero, whose unexperienced youth had
vanquished the Barbarians of Germany, and who had now traversed, in a
successful career, the whole continent of Europe, from the shores of the
Atlantic to those of the Bosphorus. A few days afterwards, when the
remains of the deceased emperor were landed in the harbor, the subjects of
Julian applauded the real or affected humanity of their sovereign. On
foot, without his diadem, and clothed in a mourning habit, he accompanied
the funeral as far as the church of the Holy Apostles, where the body was
deposited: and if these marks of respect may be interpreted as a selfish
tribute to the birth and dignity of his Imperial kinsman, the tears of
Julian professed to the world that he had forgot the injuries, and
remembered only the obligations, which he had received from Constantius.
As soon as the legions of Aquileia were assured of the death of the
emperor, they opened the gates of the city, and, by the sacrifice of their
guilty leaders, obtained an easy pardon from the prudence or lenity of
Julian; who, in the thirty-second year of his age, acquired the undisputed
possession of the Roman empire.
Philosophy had instructed Julian to compare the advantages of action and
retirement; but the elevation of his birth, and the accidents of his life,
never allowed him the freedom of choice. He might perhaps sincerely have
preferred the groves of the academy, and the society of Athens; but he was
constrained, at first by the will, and afterwards by the injustice, of
Constantius, to expose his person and fame to the dangers of Imperial
greatness; and to make himself accountable to the world, and to posterity,
for the happiness of millions. Julian recollected with terror the
observation of his master Plato, that the government of our flocks and
herds is always committed to beings of a superior species; and that the
conduct of nations requires and deserves the celestial powers of the gods
or of the genii. From this principle he justly concluded, that the man who
presumes to reign, should aspire to the perfection of the divine nature;
that he should purify his soul from her mortal and terrestrial part; that
he should extinguish his appetites, enlighten his understanding, regulate
his passions, and subdue the wild beast, which, according to the lively
metaphor of Aristotle, seldom fails to ascend the throne of a despot. The
throne of Julian, which the death of Constantius fixed on an independent
basis, was the seat of reason, of virtue, and perhaps of vanity. He
despised the honors, renounced the pleasures, and discharged with
incessant diligence the duties, of his exalted station; and there were few
among his subjects who would have consented to relieve him from the weight
of the diadem, had they been obliged to submit their time and their
actions to the rigorous laws which that philosophic emperor imposed on
himself. One of his most intimate friends, who had often shared the frugal
simplicity of his table, has remarked, that his light and sparing diet
(which was usually of the vegetable kind) left his mind and body always
free and active, for the various and important business of an author, a
pontiff, a magistrate, a general, and a prince. In one and the same day,
he gave audience to several ambassadors, and wrote, or dictated, a great
number of letters to his generals, his civil magistrates, his private
friends, and the different cities of his dominions. He listened to the
memorials which had been received, considered the subject of the
petitions, and signified his intentions more rapidly than they could be
taken in short-hand by the diligence of his secretaries. He possessed such
flexibility of thought, and such firmness of attention, that he could
employ his hand to write, his ear to listen, and his voice to dictate; and
pursue at once three several trains of ideas without hesitation, and
without error. While his ministers reposed, the prince flew with agility
from one labor to another, and, after a hasty dinner, retired into his
library, till the public business, which he had appointed for the evening,
summoned him to interrupt the prosecution of his studies. The supper of
the emperor was still less substantial than the former meal; his sleep was
never clouded by the fumes of indigestion; and except in the short
interval of a marriage, which was the effect of policy rather than love,
the chaste Julian never shared his bed with a female companion. He was
soon awakened by the entrance of fresh secretaries, who had slept the
preceding day; and his servants were obliged to wait alternately while
their indefatigable master allowed himself scarcely any other refreshment
than the change of occupation. The predecessors of Julian, his uncle, his
brother, and his cousin, indulged their puerile taste for the games of the
Circus, under the specious pretence of complying with the inclinations of
the people; and they frequently remained the greatest part of the day as
idle spectators, and as a part of the splendid spectacle, till the
ordinary round of twenty-four races was completely finished. On solemn
festivals, Julian, who felt and professed an unfashionable dislike to
these frivolous amusements, condescended to appear in the Circus; and
after bestowing a careless glance at five or six of the races, he hastily
withdrew with the impatience of a philosopher, who considered every moment
as lost that was not devoted to the advantage of the public or the
improvement of his own mind. By this avarice of time, he seemed to
protract the short duration of his reign; and if the dates were less
securely ascertained, we should refuse to believe, that only sixteen
months elapsed between the death of Constantius and the departure of his
successor for the Persian war. The actions of Julian can only be preserved
by the care of the historian; but the portion of his voluminous writings,
which is still extant, remains as a monument of the application, as well
as of the genius, of the emperor. The Misopogon, the Cæsars, several
of his orations, and his elaborate work against the Christian religion,
were composed in the long nights of the two winters, the former of which
he passed at Constantinople, and the latter at Antioch.
The reformation of the Imperial court was one of the first and most
necessary acts of the government of Julian. Soon after his entrance into
the palace of Constantinople, he had occasion for the service of a barber.
An officer, magnificently dressed, immediately presented himself. "It is a
barber," exclaimed the prince, with affected surprise, "that I want, and
not a receiver-general of the finances." He questioned the man concerning
the profits of his employment and was informed, that besides a large
salary, and some valuable perquisites, he enjoyed a daily allowance for
twenty servants, and as many horses. A thousand barbers, a thousand
cup-bearers, a thousand cooks, were distributed in the several offices of
luxury; and the number of eunuchs could be compared only with the insects
of a summer's day. The monarch who resigned to his subjects the
superiority of merit and virtue, was distinguished by the oppressive
magnificence of his dress, his table, his buildings, and his train. The
stately palaces erected by Constantine and his sons, were decorated with
many colored marbles, and ornaments of massy gold. The most exquisite
dainties were procured, to gratify their pride, rather than their taste;
birds of the most distant climates, fish from the most remote seas, fruits
out of their natural season, winter roses, and summer snows. The domestic
crowd of the palace surpassed the expense of the legions; yet the smallest
part of this costly multitude was subservient to the use, or even to the
splendor, of the throne. The monarch was disgraced, and the people was
injured, by the creation and sale of an infinite number of obscure, and
even titular employments; and the most worthless of mankind might purchase
the privilege of being maintained, without the necessity of labor, from
the public revenue. The waste of an enormous household, the increase of
fees and perquisites, which were soon claimed as a lawful debt, and the
bribes which they extorted from those who feared their enmity, or
solicited their favor, suddenly enriched these haughty menials. They
abused their fortune, without considering their past, or their future,
condition; and their rapine and venality could be equalled only by the
extravagance of their dissipations. Their silken robes were embroidered
with gold, their tables were served with delicacy and profusion; the
houses which they built for their own use, would have covered the farm of
an ancient consul; and the most honorable citizens were obliged to
dismount from their horses, and respectfully to salute a eunuch whom they
met on the public highway. The luxury of the palace excited the contempt
and indignation of Julian, who usually slept on the ground, who yielded
with reluctance to the indispensable calls of nature; and who placed his
vanity, not in emulating, but in despising, the pomp of royalty.
By the total extirpation of a mischief which was magnified even beyond its
real extent, he was impatient to relieve the distress, and to appease the
murmurs of the people; who support with less uneasiness the weight of
taxes, if they are convinced that the fruits of their industry are
appropriated to the service of the state. But in the execution of this
salutary work, Julian is accused of proceeding with too much haste and
inconsiderate severity. By a single edict, he reduced the palace of
Constantinople to an immense desert, and dismissed with ignominy the whole
train of slaves and dependants, without providing any just, or at least
benevolent, exceptions, for the age, the services, or the poverty, of the
faithful domestics of the Imperial family. Such indeed was the temper of
Julian, who seldom recollected the fundamental maxim of Aristotle, that
true virtue is placed at an equal distance between the opposite vices. The
splendid and effeminate dress of the Asiatics, the curls and paint, the
collars and bracelets, which had appeared so ridiculous in the person of
Constantine, were consistently rejected by his philosophic successor. But
with the fopperies, Julian affected to renounce the decencies of dress;
and seemed to value himself for his neglect of the laws of cleanliness. In
a satirical performance, which was designed for the public eye, the
emperor descants with pleasure, and even with pride, on the length of his
nails, and the inky blackness of his hands; protests, that although the
greatest part of his body was covered with hair, the use of the razor was
confined to his head alone; and celebrates, with visible complacency, the
shaggy and populous beard, which he fondly
cherished, after the example of the philosophers of Greece. Had Julian
consulted the simple dictates of reason, the first magistrate of the
Romans would have scorned the affectation of Diogenes, as well as that of
Darius.
But the work of public reformation would have remained imperfect, if
Julian had only corrected the abuses, without punishing the crimes, of his
predecessor's reign. "We are now delivered," says he, in a familiar letter
to one of his intimate friends, "we are now surprisingly delivered from
the voracious jaws of the Hydra. I do not mean to apply the epithet to my
brother Constantius. He is no more; may the earth lie light on his head!
But his artful and cruel favorites studied to deceive and exasperate a
prince, whose natural mildness cannot be praised without some efforts of
adulation. It is not, however, my intention, that even those men should be
oppressed: they are accused, and they shall enjoy the benefit of a fair
and impartial trial." To conduct this inquiry, Julian named six judges of
the highest rank in the state and army; and as he wished to escape the
reproach of condemning his personal enemies, he fixed this extraordinary
tribunal at Chalcedon, on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus; and
transferred to the commissioners an absolute power to pronounce and
execute their final sentence, without delay, and without appeal. The
office of president was exercised by the venerable præfect of the
East, a second Sallust, whose virtues conciliated the esteem of Greek
sophists, and of Christian bishops. He was assisted by the eloquent
Mamertinus, one of the consuls elect, whose merit is loudly celebrated by
the doubtful evidence of his own applause. But the civil wisdom of two
magistrates was overbalanced by the ferocious violence of four generals,
Nevitta, Agilo, Jovinus, and Arbetio. Arbetio, whom the public would have
seen with less surprise at the bar than on the bench, was supposed to
possess the secret of the commission; the armed and angry leaders of the
Jovian and Herculian bands encompassed the tribunal; and the judges were
alternately swayed by the laws of justice, and by the clamors of faction.
The chamberlain Eusebius, who had so long abused the favor of Constantius,
expiated, by an ignominious death, the insolence, the corruption, and
cruelty of his servile reign. The executions of Paul and Apodemius (the
former of whom was burnt alive) were accepted as an inadequate atonement
by the widows and orphans of so many hundred Romans, whom those legal
tyrants had betrayed and murdered. But justice herself (if we may use the
pathetic expression of Ammianus ) appeared to weep over the fate of
Ursulus, the treasurer of the empire; and his blood accused the
ingratitude of Julian, whose distress had been seasonably relieved by the
intrepid liberality of that honest minister. The rage of the soldiers,
whom he had provoked by his indiscretion, was the cause and the excuse of
his death; and the emperor, deeply wounded by his own reproaches and those
of the public, offered some consolation to the family of Ursulus, by the
restitution of his confiscated fortunes. Before the end of the year in
which they had been adorned with the ensigns of the prefecture and
consulship, Taurus and Florentius were reduced to implore the clemency of
the inexorable tribunal of Chalcedon. The former was banished to Vercellæ
in Italy, and a sentence of death was pronounced against the latter. A
wise prince should have rewarded the crime of Taurus: the faithful
minister, when he was no longer able to oppose the progress of a rebel,
had taken refuge in the court of his benefactor and his lawful sovereign.
But the guilt of Florentius justified the severity of the judges; and his
escape served to display the magnanimity of Julian, who nobly checked the
interested diligence of an informer, and refused to learn what place
concealed the wretched fugitive from his just resentment. Some months
after the tribunal of Chalcedon had been dissolved, the prætorian
vicegerent of Africa, the notary Gaudentius, and Artemius duke of Egypt,
were executed at Antioch. Artemius had reigned the cruel and corrupt
tyrant of a great province; Gaudentius had long practised the arts of
calumny against the innocent, the virtuous, and even the person of Julian
himself. Yet the circumstances of their trial and condemnation were so
unskillfully managed, that these wicked men obtained, in the public
opinion, the glory of suffering for the obstinate loyalty with which they
had supported the cause of Constantius. The rest of his servants were
protected by a general act of oblivion; and they were left to enjoy with
impunity the bribes which they had accepted, either to defend the
oppressed, or to oppress the friendless. This measure, which, on the
soundest principles of policy, may deserve our approbation, was executed
in a manner which seemed to degrade the majesty of the throne. Julian was
tormented by the importunities of a multitude, particularly of Egyptians,
who loudly redemanded the gifts which they had imprudently or illegally
bestowed; he foresaw the endless prosecution of vexatious suits; and he
engaged a promise, which ought always to have been sacred, that if they
would repair to Chalcedon, he would meet them in person, to hear and
determine their complaints. But as soon as they were landed, he issued an
absolute order, which prohibited the watermen from transporting any
Egyptian to Constantinople; and thus detained his disappointed clients on
the Asiatic shore till, their patience and money being utterly exhausted,
they were obliged to return with indignant murmurs to their native
country.
The numerous army of spies, of agents, and informers enlisted by
Constantius to secure the repose of one man, and to interrupt that of
millions, was immediately disbanded by his generous successor. Julian was
slow in his suspicions, and gentle in his punishments; and his contempt of
treason was the result of judgment, of vanity, and of courage. Conscious
of superior merit, he was persuaded that few among his subjects would dare
to meet him in the field, to attempt his life, or even to seat themselves
on his vacant throne. The philosopher could excuse the hasty sallies of
discontent; and the hero could despise the ambitious projects which
surpassed the fortune or the abilities of the rash conspirators. A citizen
of Ancyra had prepared for his own use a purple garment; and this
indiscreet action, which, under the reign of Constantius, would have been
considered as a capital offence, was reported to Julian by the officious
importunity of a private enemy. The monarch, after making some inquiry
into the rank and character of his rival, despatched the informer with a
present of a pair of purple slippers, to complete the magnificence of his
Imperial habit. A more dangerous conspiracy was formed by ten of the
domestic guards, who had resolved to assassinate Julian in the field of
exercise near Antioch. Their intemperance revealed their guilt; and they
were conducted in chains to the presence of their injured sovereign, who,
after a lively representation of the wickedness and folly of their
enterprise, instead of a death of torture, which they deserved and
expected, pronounced a sentence of exile against the two principal
offenders. The only instance in which Julian seemed to depart from his
accustomed clemency, was the execution of a rash youth, who, with a feeble
hand, had aspired to seize the reins of empire. But that youth was the son
of Marcellus, the general of cavalry, who, in the first campaign of the
Gallic war, had deserted the standard of the Cæsar and the republic.
Without appearing to indulge his personal resentment, Julian might easily
confound the crime of the son and of the father; but he was reconciled by
the distress of Marcellus, and the liberality of the emperor endeavored to
heal the wound which had been inflicted by the hand of justice.
Julian was not insensible of the advantages of freedom. From his studies
he had imbibed the spirit of ancient sages and heroes; his life and
fortunes had depended on the caprice of a tyrant; and when he ascended the
throne, his pride was sometimes mortified by the reflection, that the
slaves who would not dare to censure his defects were not worthy to
applaud his virtues. He sincerely abhorred the system of Oriental
despotism, which Diocletian, Constantine, and the patient habits of
fourscore years, had established in the empire. A motive of superstition
prevented the execution of the design, which Julian had frequently
meditated, of relieving his head from the weight of a costly diadem; but
he absolutely refused the title of Dominus, or
Lord, a word which was grown so familiar to the
ears of the Romans, that they no longer remembered its servile and
humiliating origin. The office, or rather the name, of consul, was
cherished by a prince who contemplated with reverence the ruins of the
republic; and the same behavior which had been assumed by the prudence of
Augustus was adopted by Julian from choice and inclination. On the calends
of January, at break of day, the new consuls, Mamertinus and Nevitta,
hastened to the palace to salute the emperor. As soon as he was informed
of their approach, he leaped from his throne, eagerly advanced to meet
them, and compelled the blushing magistrates to receive the demonstrations
of his affected humility. From the palace they proceeded to the senate.
The emperor, on foot, marched before their litters; and the gazing
multitude admired the image of ancient times, or secretly blamed a
conduct, which, in their eyes, degraded the majesty of the purple. But the
behavior of Julian was uniformly supported. During the games of the
Circus, he had, imprudently or designedly, performed the manumission of a
slave in the presence of the consul. The moment he was reminded that he
had trespassed on the jurisdiction of another
magistrate, he condemned himself to pay a fine of ten pounds of gold; and
embraced this public occasion of declaring to the world, that he was
subject, like the rest of his fellow-citizens, to the laws, and even to
the forms, of the republic. The spirit of his administration, and his
regard for the place of his nativity, induced Julian to confer on the
senate of Constantinople the same honors, privileges, and authority, which
were still enjoyed by the senate of ancient Rome. A legal fiction was
introduced, and gradually established, that one half of the national
council had migrated into the East; and the despotic successors of Julian,
accepting the title of Senators, acknowledged themselves the members of a
respectable body, which was permitted to represent the majesty of the
Roman name. From Constantinople, the attention of the monarch was extended
to the municipal senates of the provinces. He abolished, by repeated
edicts, the unjust and pernicious exemptions which had withdrawn so many
idle citizens from the services of their country; and by imposing an equal
distribution of public duties, he restored the strength, the splendor, or,
according to the glowing expression of Libanius, the soul of the expiring
cities of his empire. The venerable age of Greece excited the most tender
compassion in the mind of Julian, which kindled into rapture when he
recollected the gods, the heroes, and the men superior to heroes and to
gods, who have bequeathed to the latest posterity the monuments of their
genius, or the example of their virtues. He relieved the distress, and
restored the beauty, of the cities of Epirus and Peloponnesus. Athens
acknowledged him for her benefactor; Argos, for her deliverer. The pride
of Corinth, again rising from her ruins with the honors of a Roman colony,
exacted a tribute from the adjacent republics, for the purpose of
defraying the games of the Isthmus, which were celebrated in the
amphitheatre with the hunting of bears and panthers. From this tribute the
cities of Elis, of Delphi, and of Argos, which had inherited from their
remote ancestors the sacred office of perpetuating the Olympic, the
Pythian, and the Nemean games, claimed a just exemption. The immunity of
Elis and Delphi was respected by the Corinthians; but the poverty of Argos
tempted the insolence of oppression; and the feeble complaints of its
deputies were silenced by the decree of a provincial magistrate, who seems
to have consulted only the interest of the capital in which he resided.
Seven years after this sentence, Julian allowed the cause to be referred
to a superior tribunal; and his eloquence was interposed, most probably
with success, in the defence of a city, which had been the royal seat of
Agamemnon, and had given to Macedonia a race of kings and conquerors.
The laborious administration of military and civil affairs, which were
multiplied in proportion to the extent of the empire, exercised the
abilities of Julian; but he frequently assumed the two characters of
Orator and of Judge, which are almost unknown to the modern sovereigns of
Europe. The arts of persuasion, so diligently cultivated by the first Cæsars,
were neglected by the military ignorance and Asiatic pride of their
successors; and if they condescended to harangue the soldiers, whom they
feared, they treated with silent disdain the senators, whom they despised.
The assemblies of the senate, which Constantius had avoided, were
considered by Julian as the place where he could exhibit, with the most
propriety, the maxims of a republican, and the talents of a rhetorician.
He alternately practised, as in a school of declamation, the several modes
of praise, of censure, of exhortation; and his friend Libanius has
remarked, that the study of Homer taught him to imitate the simple,
concise style of Menelaus, the copiousness of Nestor, whose words
descended like the flakes of a winter's snow, or the pathetic and forcible
eloquence of Ulysses. The functions of a judge, which are sometimes
incompatible with those of a prince, were exercised by Julian, not only as
a duty, but as an amusement; and although he might have trusted the
integrity and discernment of his Prætorian præfects, he often
placed himself by their side on the seat of judgment. The acute
penetration of his mind was agreeably occupied in detecting and defeating
the chicanery of the advocates, who labored to disguise the truths of
facts, and to pervert the sense of the laws. He sometimes forgot the
gravity of his station, asked indiscreet or unseasonable questions, and
betrayed, by the loudness of his voice, and the agitation of his body, the
earnest vehemence with which he maintained his opinion against the judges,
the advocates, and their clients. But his knowledge of his own temper
prompted him to encourage, and even to solicit, the reproof of his friends
and ministers; and whenever they ventured to oppose the irregular sallies
of his passions, the spectators could observe the shame, as well as the
gratitude, of their monarch. The decrees of Julian were almost always
founded on the principles of justice; and he had the firmness to resist
the two most dangerous temptations, which assault the tribunal of a
sovereign, under the specious forms of compassion and equity. He decided
the merits of the cause without weighing the circumstances of the parties;
and the poor, whom he wished to relieve, were condemned to satisfy the
just demands of a wealthy and noble adversary. He carefully distinguished
the judge from the legislator; and though he meditated a necessary
reformation of the Roman jurisprudence, he pronounced sentence according
to the strict and literal interpretation of those laws, which the
magistrates were bound to execute, and the subjects to obey.
The generality of princes, if they were stripped of their purple, and cast
naked into the world, would immediately sink to the lowest rank of
society, without a hope of emerging from their obscurity. But the personal
merit of Julian was, in some measure, independent of his fortune. Whatever
had been his choice of life, by the force of intrepid courage, lively wit,
and intense application, he would have obtained, or at least he would have
deserved, the highest honors of his profession; and Julian might have
raised himself to the rank of minister, or general, of the state in which
he was born a private citizen. If the jealous caprice of power had
disappointed his expectations, if he had prudently declined the paths of
greatness, the employment of the same talents in studious solitude would
have placed beyond the reach of kings his present happiness and his
immortal fame. When we inspect, with minute, or perhaps malevolent
attention, the portrait of Julian, something seems wanting to the grace
and perfection of the whole figure. His genius was less powerful and
sublime than that of Cæsar; nor did he possess the consummate
prudence of Augustus. The virtues of Trajan appear more steady and
natural, and the philosophy of Marcus is more simple and consistent. Yet
Julian sustained adversity with firmness, and prosperity with moderation.
After an interval of one hundred and twenty years from the death of
Alexander Severus, the Romans beheld an emperor who made no distinction
between his duties and his pleasures; who labored to relieve the distress,
and to revive the spirit, of his subjects; and who endeavored always to
connect authority with merit, and happiness with virtue. Even faction, and
religious faction, was constrained to acknowledge the superiority of his
genius, in peace as well as in war, and to confess, with a sigh, that the
apostate Julian was a lover of his country, and that he deserved the
empire of the world.
The Religion Of Julian.—Universal Toleration.—He Attempts To Restore And Reform The Pagan Worship—To Rebuild The Temple Of Jerusalem—His Artful Persecution Of The Christians.—Mutual Zeal And Injustice.
The character of Apostate has injured the reputation of Julian; and the
enthusiasm which clouded his virtues has exaggerated the real and apparent
magnitude of his faults. Our partial ignorance may represent him as a
philosophic monarch, who studied to protect, with an equal hand, the
religious factions of the empire; and to allay the theological fever which
had inflamed the minds of the people, from the edicts of Diocletian to the
exile of Athanasius. A more accurate view of the character and conduct of
Julian will remove this favorable prepossession for a prince who did not
escape the general contagion of the times. We enjoy the singular advantage
of comparing the pictures which have been delineated by his fondest
admirers and his implacable enemies. The actions of Julian are faithfully
related by a judicious and candid historian, the impartial spectator of
his life and death. The unanimous evidence of his contemporaries is
confirmed by the public and private declarations of the emperor himself;
and his various writings express the uniform tenor of his religious
sentiments, which policy would have prompted him to dissemble rather than
to affect. A devout and sincere attachment for the gods of Athens and Rome
constituted the ruling passion of Julian; the powers of an enlightened
understanding were betrayed and corrupted by the influence of
superstitious prejudice; and the phantoms which existed only in the mind
of the emperor had a real and pernicious effect on the government of the
empire. The vehement zeal of the Christians, who despised the worship, and
overturned the altars of those fabulous deities, engaged their votary in a
state of irreconcilable hostility with a very numerous party of his
subjects; and he was sometimes tempted by the desire of victory, or the
shame of a repulse, to violate the laws of prudence, and even of justice.
The triumph of the party, which he deserted and opposed, has fixed a stain
of infamy on the name of Julian; and the unsuccessful apostate has been
overwhelmed with a torrent of pious invectives, of which the signal was
given by the sonorous trumpet of Gregory Nazianzen. The interesting nature
of the events which were crowded into the short reign of this active
emperor, deserve a just and circumstantial narrative. His motives, his
counsels, and his actions, as far as they are connected with the history
of religion, will be the subject of the present chapter.
The cause of his strange and fatal apostasy may be derived from the early
period of his life, when he was left an orphan in the hands of the
murderers of his family. The names of Christ and of Constantius, the ideas
of slavery and of religion, were soon associated in a youthful
imagination, which was susceptible of the most lively impressions. The
care of his infancy was intrusted to Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, who
was related to him on the side of his mother; and till Julian reached the
twentieth year of his age, he received from his Christian preceptors the
education, not of a hero, but of a saint. The emperor, less jealous of a
heavenly than of an earthly crown, contented himself with the imperfect
character of a catechumen, while he bestowed the advantages of baptism on
the nephews of Constantine. They were even admitted to the inferior
offices of the ecclesiastical order; and Julian publicly read the Holy
Scriptures in the church of Nicomedia. The study of religion, which they
assiduously cultivated, appeared to produce the fairest fruits of faith
and devotion. They prayed, they fasted, they distributed alms to the poor,
gifts to the clergy, and oblations to the tombs of the martyrs; and the
splendid monument of St. Mamas, at Cæsarea, was erected, or at least
was undertaken, by the joint labor of Gallus and Julian. They respectfully
conversed with the bishops, who were eminent for superior sanctity, and
solicited the benediction of the monks and hermits, who had introduced
into Cappadocia the voluntary hardships of the ascetic life. As the two
princes advanced towards the years of manhood, they discovered, in their
religious sentiments, the difference of their characters. The dull and
obstinate understanding of Gallus embraced, with implicit zeal, the
doctrines of Christianity; which never influenced his conduct, or
moderated his passions. The mild disposition of the younger brother was
less repugnant to the precepts of the gospel; and his active curiosity
might have been gratified by a theological system, which explains the
mysterious essence of the Deity, and opens the boundless prospect of
invisible and future worlds. But the independent spirit of Julian refused
to yield the passive and unresisting obedience which was required, in the
name of religion, by the haughty ministers of the church. Their
speculative opinions were imposed as positive laws, and guarded by the
terrors of eternal punishments; but while they prescribed the rigid
formulary of the thoughts, the words, and the actions of the young prince;
whilst they silenced his objections, and severely checked the freedom of
his inquiries, they secretly provoked his impatient genius to disclaim the
authority of his ecclesiastical guides. He was educated in the Lesser
Asia, amidst the scandals of the Arian controversy. The fierce contests of
the Eastern bishops, the incessant alterations of their creeds, and the
profane motives which appeared to actuate their conduct, insensibly
strengthened the prejudice of Julian, that they neither understood nor
believed the religion for which they so fiercely contended. Instead of
listening to the proofs of Christianity with that favorable attention
which adds weight to the most respectable evidence, he heard with
suspicion, and disputed with obstinacy and acuteness, the doctrines for
which he already entertained an invincible aversion. Whenever the young
princes were directed to compose declamations on the subject of the
prevailing controversies, Julian always declared himself the advocate of
Paganism; under the specious excuse that, in the defence of the weaker
cause, his learning and ingenuity might be more advantageously exercised
and displayed.
As soon as Gallus was invested with the honors of the purple, Julian was
permitted to breathe the air of freedom, of literature, and of Paganism.
The crowd of sophists, who were attracted by the taste and liberality of
their royal pupil, had formed a strict alliance between the learning and
the religion of Greece; and the poems of Homer, instead of being admired
as the original productions of human genius, were seriously ascribed to
the heavenly inspiration of Apollo and the muses. The deities of Olympus,
as they are painted by the immortal bard, imprint themselves on the minds
which are the least addicted to superstitious credulity. Our familiar
knowledge of their names and characters, their forms and attributes,
seems to bestow on those airy beings a real and
substantial existence; and the pleasing enchantment produces an imperfect
and momentary assent of the imagination to those fables, which are the
most repugnant to our reason and experience. In the age of Julian, every
circumstance contributed to prolong and fortify the illusion; the
magnificent temples of Greece and Asia; the works of those artists who had
expressed, in painting or in sculpture, the divine conceptions of the
poet; the pomp of festivals and sacrifices; the successful arts of
divination; the popular traditions of oracles and prodigies; and the
ancient practice of two thousand years. The weakness of polytheism was, in
some measure, excused by the moderation of its claims; and the devotion of
the Pagans was not incompatible with the most licentious scepticism.
Instead of an indivisible and regular system, which occupies the whole
extent of the believing mind, the mythology of the Greeks was composed of
a thousand loose and flexible parts, and the servant of the gods was at
liberty to define the degree and measure of his religious faith. The creed
which Julian adopted for his own use was of the largest dimensions; and,
by strange contradiction, he disdained the salutary yoke of the gospel,
whilst he made a voluntary offering of his reason on the altars of Jupiter
and Apollo. One of the orations of Julian is consecrated to the honor of
Cybele, the mother of the gods, who required from her effeminate priests
the bloody sacrifice, so rashly performed by the madness of the Phrygian
boy. The pious emperor condescends to relate, without a blush, and without
a smile, the voyage of the goddess from the shores of Pergamus to the
mouth of the Tyber, and the stupendous miracle, which convinced the senate
and people of Rome that the lump of clay, which their ambassadors had
transported over the seas, was endowed with life, and sentiment, and
divine power. For the truth of this prodigy he appeals to the public
monuments of the city; and censures, with some acrimony, the sickly and
affected taste of those men, who impertinently derided the sacred
traditions of their ancestors.
But the devout philosopher, who sincerely embraced, and warmly encouraged,
the superstition of the people, reserved for himself the privilege of a
liberal interpretation; and silently withdrew from the foot of the altars
into the sanctuary of the temple. The extravagance of the Grecian
mythology proclaimed, with a clear and audible voice, that the pious
inquirer, instead of being scandalized or satisfied with the literal
sense, should diligently explore the occult wisdom, which had been
disguised, by the prudence of antiquity, under the mask of folly and of
fable. The philosophers of the Platonic school, Plotinus, Porphyry, and
the divine Iamblichus, were admired as the most skilful masters of this
allegorical science, which labored to soften and harmonize the deformed
features of Paganism. Julian himself, who was directed in the mysterious
pursuit by Ædesius, the venerable successor of Iamblichus, aspired
to the possession of a treasure, which he esteemed, if we may credit his
solemn asseverations, far above the empire of the world. It was indeed a
treasure, which derived its value only from opinion; and every artist who
flattered himself that he had extracted the precious ore from the
surrounding dross, claimed an equal right of stamping the name and figure
the most agreeable to his peculiar fancy. The fable of Atys and Cybele had
been already explained by Porphyry; but his labors served only to animate
the pious industry of Julian, who invented and published his own allegory
of that ancient and mystic tale. This freedom of interpretation, which
might gratify the pride of the Platonists, exposed the vanity of their
art. Without a tedious detail, the modern reader could not form a just
idea of the strange allusions, the forced etymologies, the solemn
trifling, and the impenetrable obscurity of these sages, who professed to
reveal the system of the universe. As the traditions of Pagan mythology
were variously related, the sacred interpreters were at liberty to select
the most convenient circumstances; and as they translated an arbitrary
cipher, they could extract from any fable
any sense which was adapted to their favorite
system of religion and philosophy. The lascivious form of a naked Venus
was tortured into the discovery of some moral precept, or some physical
truth; and the castration of Atys explained the revolution of the sun
between the tropics, or the separation of the human soul from vice and
error.
The theological system of Julian appears to have contained the sublime and
important principles of natural religion. But as the faith, which is not
founded on revelation, must remain destitute of any firm assurance, the
disciple of Plato imprudently relapsed into the habits of vulgar
superstition; and the popular and philosophic notion of the Deity seems to
have been confounded in the practice, the writings, and even in the mind
of Julian. The pious emperor acknowledged and adored the Eternal Cause of
the universe, to whom he ascribed all the perfections of an infinite
nature, invisible to the eyes and inaccessible to the understanding, of
feeble mortals. The Supreme God had created, or rather, in the Platonic
language, had generated, the gradual succession of dependent spirits, of
gods, of dæmons, of heroes, and of men; and every being which
derived its existence immediately from the First Cause, received the
inherent gift of immortality. That so precious an advantage might not be
lavished upon unworthy objects, the Creator had intrusted to the skill and
power of the inferior gods the office of forming the human body, and of
arranging the beautiful harmony of the animal, the vegetable, and the
mineral kingdoms. To the conduct of these divine ministers he delegated
the temporal government of this lower world; but their imperfect
administration is not exempt from discord or error. The earth and its
inhabitants are divided among them, and the characters of Mars or Minerva,
of Mercury or Venus, may be distinctly traced in the laws and manners of
their peculiar votaries. As long as our immortal souls are confined in a
mortal prison, it is our interest, as well as our duty, to solicit the
favor, and to deprecate the wrath, of the powers of heaven; whose pride is
gratified by the devotion of mankind; and whose grosser parts may be
supposed to derive some nourishment from the fumes of sacrifice. The
inferior gods might sometimes condescend to animate the statues, and to
inhabit the temples, which were dedicated to their honor. They might
occasionally visit the earth, but the heavens were the proper throne and
symbol of their glory. The invariable order of the sun, moon, and stars,
was hastily admitted by Julian, as a proof of their eternal
duration; and their eternity was a sufficient evidence that they were the
workmanship, not of an inferior deity, but of the Omnipotent King. In the
system of Platonists, the visible was a type of the invisible world. The
celestial bodies, as they were informed by a divine spirit, might be
considered as the objects the most worthy of religious worship. The Sun,
whose genial influence pervades and sustains the universe, justly claimed
the adoration of mankind, as the bright representative of the Logos, the
lively, the rational, the beneficent image of the intellectual Father.
In every age, the absence of genuine inspiration is supplied by the strong
illusions of enthusiasm, and the mimic arts of imposture. If, in the time
of Julian, these arts had been practised only by the pagan priests, for
the support of an expiring cause, some indulgence might perhaps be allowed
to the interest and habits of the sacerdotal character. But it may appear
a subject of surprise and scandal, that the philosophers themselves should
have contributed to abuse the superstitious credulity of mankind, and that
the Grecian mysteries should have been supported by the magic or theurgy
of the modern Platonists. They arrogantly pretended to control the order
of nature, to explore the secrets of futurity, to command the service of
the inferior dæmons, to enjoy the view and conversation of the
superior gods, and by disengaging the soul from her material bands, to
reunite that immortal particle with the Infinite and Divine Spirit.
The devout and fearless curiosity of Julian tempted the philosophers with
the hopes of an easy conquest; which, from the situation of their young
proselyte, might be productive of the most important consequences. Julian
imbibed the first rudiments of the Platonic doctrines from the mouth of
Ædesius, who had fixed at Pergamus his wandering and persecuted
school. But as the declining strength of that venerable sage was unequal
to the ardor, the diligence, the rapid conception of his pupil, two of his
most learned disciples, Chrysanthes and Eusebius, supplied, at his own
desire, the place of their aged master. These philosophers seem to have
prepared and distributed their respective parts; and they artfully
contrived, by dark hints and affected disputes, to excite the impatient
hopes of the aspirant, till they delivered him
into the hands of their associate, Maximus, the boldest and most skilful
master of the Theurgic science. By his hands, Julian was secretly
initiated at Ephesus, in the twentieth year of his age. His residence at
Athens confirmed this unnatural alliance of philosophy and superstition.
He obtained the privilege of a solemn initiation into the mysteries of
Eleusis, which, amidst the general decay of the Grecian worship, still
retained some vestiges of their primæval sanctity; and such was the
zeal of Julian, that he afterwards invited the Eleusinian pontiff to the
court of Gaul, for the sole purpose of consummating, by mystic rites and
sacrifices, the great work of his sanctification. As these ceremonies were
performed in the depth of caverns, and in the silence of the night, and as
the inviolable secret of the mysteries was preserved by the discretion of
the initiated, I shall not presume to describe the horrid sounds, and
fiery apparitions, which were presented to the senses, or the imagination,
of the credulous aspirant, till the visions of comfort and knowledge broke
upon him in a blaze of celestial light. In the caverns of Ephesus and
Eleusis, the mind of Julian was penetrated with sincere, deep, and
unalterable enthusiasm; though he might sometimes exhibit the vicissitudes
of pious fraud and hypocrisy, which may be observed, or at least
suspected, in the characters of the most conscientious fanatics. From that
moment he consecrated his life to the service of the gods; and while the
occupations of war, of government, and of study, seemed to claim the whole
measure of his time, a stated portion of the hours of the night was
invariably reserved for the exercise of private devotion. The temperance
which adorned the severe manners of the soldier and the philosopher was
connected with some strict and frivolous rules of religious abstinence;
and it was in honor of Pan or Mercury, of Hecate or Isis, that Julian, on
particular days, denied himself the use of some particular food, which
might have been offensive to his tutelar deities. By these voluntary
fasts, he prepared his senses and his understanding for the frequent and
familiar visits with which he was honored by the celestial powers.
Notwithstanding the modest silence of Julian himself, we may learn from
his faithful friend, the orator Libanius, that he lived in a perpetual
intercourse with the gods and goddesses; that they descended upon earth to
enjoy the conversation of their favorite hero; that they gently
interrupted his slumbers by touching his hand or his hair; that they
warned him of every impending danger, and conducted him, by their
infallible wisdom, in every action of his life; and that he had acquired
such an intimate knowledge of his heavenly guests, as readily to
distinguish the voice of Jupiter from that of Minerva, and the form of
Apollo from the figure of Hercules. These sleeping or waking visions, the
ordinary effects of abstinence and fanaticism, would almost degrade the
emperor to the level of an Egyptian monk. But the useless lives of Antony
or Pachomius were consumed in these vain occupations. Julian could break
from the dream of superstition to arm himself for battle; and after
vanquishing in the field the enemies of Rome, he calmly retired into his
tent, to dictate the wise and salutary laws of an empire, or to indulge
his genius in the elegant pursuits of literature and philosophy.
The important secret of the apostasy of Julian was intrusted to the
fidelity of the initiated, with whom he was
united by the sacred ties of friendship and religion. The pleasing rumor
was cautiously circulated among the adherents of the ancient worship; and
his future greatness became the object of the hopes, the prayers, and the
predictions of the Pagans, in every province of the empire. From the zeal
and virtues of their royal proselyte, they fondly expected the cure of
every evil, and the restoration of every blessing; and instead of
disapproving of the ardor of their pious wishes, Julian ingenuously
confessed, that he was ambitious to attain a situation in which he might
be useful to his country and to his religion. But this religion was viewed
with a hostile eye by the successor of Constantine, whose capricious
passions alternately saved and threatened the life of Julian. The arts of
magic and divination were strictly prohibited under a despotic government,
which condescended to fear them; and if the Pagans were reluctantly
indulged in the exercise of their superstition, the rank of Julian would
have excepted him from the general toleration. The apostate soon became
the presumptive heir of the monarchy, and his death could alone have
appeased the just apprehensions of the Christians. But the young prince,
who aspired to the glory of a hero rather than of a martyr, consulted his
safety by dissembling his religion; and the easy temper of polytheism
permitted him to join in the public worship of a sect which he inwardly
despised. Libanius has considered the hypocrisy of his friend as a
subject, not of censure, but of praise. "As the statues of the gods," says
that orator, "which have been defiled with filth, are again placed in a
magnificent temple, so the beauty of truth was seated in the mind of
Julian, after it had been purified from the errors and follies of his
education. His sentiments were changed; but as it would have been
dangerous to have avowed his sentiments, his conduct still continued the
same. Very different from the ass in Æsop, who disguised himself
with a lion's hide, our lion was obliged to conceal himself under the skin
of an ass; and, while he embraced the dictates of reason, to obey the laws
of prudence and necessity." The dissimulation of Julian lasted about ten
years, from his secret initiation at Ephesus to the beginning of the civil
war; when he declared himself at once the implacable enemy of Christ and
of Constantius. This state of constraint might contribute to strengthen
his devotion; and as soon as he had satisfied the obligation of assisting,
on solemn festivals, at the assemblies of the Christians, Julian returned,
with the impatience of a lover, to burn his free and voluntary incense on
the domestic chapels of Jupiter and Mercury. But as every act of
dissimulation must be painful to an ingenuous spirit, the profession of
Christianity increased the aversion of Julian for a religion which
oppressed the freedom of his mind, and compelled him to hold a conduct
repugnant to the noblest attributes of human nature, sincerity and
courage.
The inclination of Julian might prefer the gods of Homer, and of the
Scipios, to the new faith, which his uncle had established in the Roman
empire; and in which he himself had been sanctified by the sacrament of
baptism. But, as a philosopher, it was incumbent on him to justify his
dissent from Christianity, which was supported by the number of its
converts, by the chain of prophecy, the splendor of miracles, and the
weight of evidence. The elaborate work, which he composed amidst the
preparations of the Persian war, contained the substance of those
arguments which he had long revolved in his mind. Some fragments have been
transcribed and preserved, by his adversary, the vehement Cyril of
Alexandria; and they exhibit a very singular mixture of wit and learning,
of sophistry and fanaticism. The elegance of the style and the rank of the
author, recommended his writings to the public attention; and in the
impious list of the enemies of Christianity, the celebrated name of
Porphyry was effaced by the superior merit or reputation of Julian. The
minds of the faithful were either seduced, or scandalized, or alarmed; and
the pagans, who sometimes presumed to engage in the unequal dispute,
derived, from the popular work of their Imperial missionary, an
inexhaustible supply of fallacious objections. But in the assiduous
prosecution of these theological studies, the emperor of the Romans
imbibed the illiberal prejudices and passions of a polemic divine. He
contracted an irrevocable obligation to maintain and propagate his
religious opinions; and whilst he secretly applauded the strength and
dexterity with which he wielded the weapons of controversy, he was tempted
to distrust the sincerity, or to despise the understandings, of his
antagonists, who could obstinately resist the force of reason and
eloquence.
The Christians, who beheld with horror and indignation the apostasy of
Julian, had much more to fear from his power than from his arguments. The
pagans, who were conscious of his fervent zeal, expected, perhaps with
impatience, that the flames of persecution should be immediately kindled
against the enemies of the gods; and that the ingenious malice of Julian
would invent some cruel refinements of death and torture which had been
unknown to the rude and inexperienced fury of his predecessors. But the
hopes, as well as the fears, of the religious factions were apparently
disappointed, by the prudent humanity of a prince, who was careful of his
own fame, of the public peace, and of the rights of mankind. Instructed by
history and reflection, Julian was persuaded, that if the diseases of the
body may sometimes be cured by salutary violence, neither steel nor fire
can eradicate the erroneous opinions of the mind. The reluctant victim may
be dragged to the foot of the altar; but the heart still abhors and
disclaims the sacrilegious act of the hand. Religious obstinacy is
hardened and exasperated by oppression; and, as soon as the persecution
subsides, those who have yielded are restored as penitents, and those who
have resisted are honored as saints and martyrs. If Julian adopted the
unsuccessful cruelty of Diocletian and his colleagues, he was sensible
that he should stain his memory with the name of a tyrant, and add new
glories to the Catholic church, which had derived strength and increase
from the severity of the pagan magistrates. Actuated by these motives, and
apprehensive of disturbing the repose of an unsettled reign, Julian
surprised the world by an edict, which was not unworthy of a statesman, or
a philosopher. He extended to all the inhabitants of the Roman world the
benefits of a free and equal toleration; and the only hardship which he
inflicted on the Christians, was to deprive them of the power of
tormenting their fellow-subjects, whom they stigmatized with the odious
titles of idolaters and heretics. The pagans received a gracious
permission, or rather an express order, to open All their temples; and
they were at once delivered from the oppressive laws, and arbitrary
vexations, which they had sustained under the reign of Constantine, and of
his sons. At the same time the bishops and clergy, who had been banished
by the Arian monarch, were recalled from exile, and restored to their
respective churches; the Donatists, the Novatians, the Macedonians, the
Eunomians, and those who, with a more prosperous fortune, adhered to the
doctrine of the Council of Nice. Julian, who understood and derided their
theological disputes, invited to the palace the leaders of the hostile
sects, that he might enjoy the agreeable spectacle of their furious
encounters. The clamor of controversy sometimes provoked the emperor to
exclaim, "Hear me! the Franks have heard me, and the Alemanni;" but he
soon discovered that he was now engaged with more obstinate and implacable
enemies; and though he exerted the powers of oratory to persuade them to
live in concord, or at least in peace, he was perfectly satisfied, before
he dismissed them from his presence, that he had nothing to dread from the
union of the Christians. The impartial Ammianus has ascribed this affected
clemency to the desire of fomenting the intestine divisions of the church,
and the insidious design of undermining the foundations of Christianity,
was inseparably connected with the zeal which Julian professed, to restore
the ancient religion of the empire.
As soon as he ascended the throne, he assumed, according to the custom of
his predecessors, the character of supreme pontiff; not only as the most
honorable title of Imperial greatness, but as a sacred and important
office; the duties of which he was resolved to execute with pious
diligence. As the business of the state prevented the emperor from joining
every day in the public devotion of his subjects, he dedicated a domestic
chapel to his tutelar deity the Sun; his gardens were filled with statues
and altars of the gods; and each apartment of the palace displaced the
appearance of a magnificent temple. Every morning he saluted the parent of
light with a sacrifice; the blood of another victim was shed at the moment
when the Sun sunk below the horizon; and the Moon, the Stars, and the
Genii of the night received their respective and seasonable honors from
the indefatigable devotion of Julian. On solemn festivals, he regularly
visited the temple of the god or goddess to whom the day was peculiarly
consecrated, and endeavored to excite the religion of the magistrates and
people by the example of his own zeal. Instead of maintaining the lofty
state of a monarch, distinguished by the splendor of his purple, and
encompassed by the golden shields of his guards, Julian solicited, with
respectful eagerness, the meanest offices which contributed to the worship
of the gods. Amidst the sacred but licentious crowd of priests, of
inferior ministers, and of female dancers, who were dedicated to the
service of the temple, it was the business of the emperor to bring the
wood, to blow the fire, to handle the knife, to slaughter the victim, and,
thrusting his bloody hands into the bowels of the expiring animal, to draw
forth the heart or liver, and to read, with the consummate skill of an
haruspex, imaginary signs of future events. The wisest of the Pagans
censured this extravagant superstition, which affected to despise the
restraints of prudence and decency. Under the reign of a prince, who
practised the rigid maxims of economy, the expense of religious worship
consumed a very large portion of the revenue; a constant supply of the
scarcest and most beautiful birds was transported from distant climates,
to bleed on the altars of the gods; a hundred oxen were frequently
sacrificed by Julian on one and the same day; and it soon became a popular
jest, that if he should return with conquest from the Persian war, the
breed of horned cattle must infallibly be extinguished. Yet this expense
may appear inconsiderable, when it is compared with the splendid presents
which were offered either by the hand, or by order, of the emperor, to all
the celebrated places of devotion in the Roman world; and with the sums
allotted to repair and decorate the ancient temples, which had suffered
the silent decay of time, or the recent injuries of Christian rapine.
Encouraged by the example, the exhortations, the liberality, of their
pious sovereign, the cities and families resumed the practice of their
neglected ceremonies. "Every part of the world," exclaims Libanius, with
devout transport, "displayed the triumph of religion; and the grateful
prospect of flaming altars, bleeding victims, the smoke of incense, and a
solemn train of priests and prophets, without fear and without danger. The
sound of prayer and of music was heard on the tops of the highest
mountains; and the same ox afforded a sacrifice for the gods, and a supper
for their joyous votaries."
But the genius and power of Julian were unequal to the enterprise of
restoring a religion which was destitute of theological principles, of
moral precepts, and of ecclesiastical discipline; which rapidly hastened
to decay and dissolution, and was not susceptible of any solid or
consistent reformation. The jurisdiction of the supreme pontiff, more
especially after that office had been united with the Imperial dignity,
comprehended the whole extent of the Roman empire. Julian named for his
vicars, in the several provinces, the priests and philosophers whom he
esteemed the best qualified to cooperate in the execution of his great
design; and his pastoral letters, if we may use that name, still represent
a very curious sketch of his wishes and intentions. He directs, that in
every city the sacerdotal order should be composed, without any
distinction of birth and fortune, of those persons who were the most
conspicuous for the love of the gods, and of men. "If they are guilty,"
continues he, "of any scandalous offence, they should be censured or
degraded by the superior pontiff; but as long as they retain their rank,
they are entitled to the respect of the magistrates and people. Their
humility may be shown in the plainness of their domestic garb; their
dignity, in the pomp of holy vestments. When they are summoned in their
turn to officiate before the altar, they ought not, during the appointed
number of days, to depart from the precincts of the temple; nor should a
single day be suffered to elapse, without the prayers and the sacrifice,
which they are obliged to offer for the prosperity of the state, and of
individuals. The exercise of their sacred functions requires an immaculate
purity, both of mind and body; and even when they are dismissed from the
temple to the occupations of common life, it is incumbent on them to excel
in decency and virtue the rest of their fellow-citizens. The priest of the
gods should never be seen in theatres or taverns. His conversation should
be chaste, his diet temperate, his friends of honorable reputation; and if
he sometimes visits the Forum or the Palace, he should appear only as the
advocate of those who have vainly solicited either justice or mercy. His
studies should be suited to the sanctity of his profession. Licentious
tales, or comedies, or satires, must be banished from his library, which
ought solely to consist of historical or philosophical writings; of
history, which is founded in truth, and of philosophy, which is connected
with religion. The impious opinions of the Epicureans and sceptics deserve
his abhorrence and contempt; but he should diligently study the systems of
Pythagoras, of Plato, and of the Stoics, which unanimously teach that
there are gods; that the world is governed by
their providence; that their goodness is the source of every temporal
blessing; and that they have prepared for the human soul a future state of
reward or punishment." The Imperial pontiff inculcates, in the most
persuasive language, the duties of benevolence and hospitality; exhorts
his inferior clergy to recommend the universal practice of those virtues;
promises to assist their indigence from the public treasury; and declares
his resolution of establishing hospitals in every city, where the poor
should be received without any invidious distinction of country or of
religion. Julian beheld with envy the wise and humane regulations of the
church; and he very frankly confesses his intention to deprive the
Christians of the applause, as well as advantage, which they had acquired
by the exclusive practice of charity and beneficence. The same spirit of
imitation might dispose the emperor to adopt several ecclesiastical
institutions, the use and importance of which were approved by the success
of his enemies. But if these imaginary plans of reformation had been
realized, the forced and imperfect copy would have been less beneficial to
Paganism, than honorable to Christianity. The Gentiles, who peaceably
followed the customs of their ancestors, were rather surprised than
pleased with the introduction of foreign manners; and in the short period
of his reign, Julian had frequent occasions to complain of the want of
fervor of his own party.
The enthusiasm of Julian prompted him to embrace the friends of Jupiter as
his personal friends and brethren; and though he partially overlooked the
merit of Christian constancy, he admired and rewarded the noble
perseverance of those Gentiles who had preferred the favor of the gods to
that of the emperor. If they cultivated the literature, as well as the
religion, of the Greeks, they acquired an additional claim to the
friendship of Julian, who ranked the Muses in the number of his tutelar
deities. In the religion which he had adopted, piety and learning were
almost synonymous; and a crowd of poets, of rhetoricians, and of
philosophers, hastened to the Imperial court, to occupy the vacant places
of the bishops, who had seduced the credulity of Constantius. His
successor esteemed the ties of common initiation as far more sacred than
those of consanguinity; he chose his favorites among the sages, who were
deeply skilled in the occult sciences of magic and divination; and every
impostor, who pretended to reveal the secrets of futurity, was assured of
enjoying the present hour in honor and affluence. Among the philosophers,
Maximus obtained the most eminent rank in the friendship of his royal
disciple, who communicated, with unreserved confidence, his actions, his
sentiments, and his religious designs, during the anxious suspense of the
civil war. As soon as Julian had taken possession of the palace of
Constantinople, he despatched an honorable and pressing invitation to
Maximus, who then resided at Sardes in Lydia, with Chrysanthius, the
associate of his art and studies. The prudent and superstitious
Chrysanthius refused to undertake a journey which showed itself, according
to the rules of divination, with the most threatening and malignant
aspect: but his companion, whose fanaticism was of a bolder cast,
persisted in his interrogations, till he had extorted from the gods a
seeming consent to his own wishes, and those of the emperor. The journey
of Maximus through the cities of Asia displayed the triumph of philosophic
vanity; and the magistrates vied with each other in the honorable
reception which they prepared for the friend of their sovereign. Julian
was pronouncing an oration before the senate, when he was informed of the
arrival of Maximus. The emperor immediately interrupted his discourse,
advanced to meet him, and after a tender embrace, conducted him by the
hand into the midst of the assembly; where he publicly acknowledged the
benefits which he had derived from the instructions of the philosopher.
Maximus, who soon acquired the confidence, and influenced the councils of
Julian, was insensibly corrupted by the temptations of a court. His dress
became more splendid, his demeanor more lofty, and he was exposed, under a
succeeding reign, to a disgraceful inquiry into the means by which the
disciple of Plato had accumulated, in the short duration of his favor, a
very scandalous proportion of wealth. Of the other philosophers and
sophists, who were invited to the Imperial residence by the choice of
Julian, or by the success of Maximus, few were able to preserve their
innocence or their reputation. The liberal gifts of money, lands, and
houses, were insufficient to satiate their rapacious avarice; and the
indignation of the people was justly excited by the remembrance of their
abject poverty and disinterested professions. The penetration of Julian
could not always be deceived: but he was unwilling to despise the
characters of those men whose talents deserved his esteem: he desired to
escape the double reproach of imprudence and inconstancy; and he was
apprehensive of degrading, in the eyes of the profane, the honor of
letters and of religion.
The favor of Julian was almost equally divided between the Pagans, who had
firmly adhered to the worship of their ancestors, and the Christians, who
prudently embraced the religion of their sovereign. The acquisition of new
proselytes gratified the ruling passions of his soul, superstition and
vanity; and he was heard to declare, with the enthusiasm of a missionary,
that if he could render each individual richer than Midas, and every city
greater than Babylon, he should not esteem himself the benefactor of
mankind, unless, at the same time, he could reclaim his subjects from
their impious revolt against the immortal gods. A prince who had studied
human nature, and who possessed the treasures of the Roman empire, could
adapt his arguments, his promises, and his rewards, to every order of
Christians; and the merit of a seasonable conversion was allowed to supply
the defects of a candidate, or even to expiate the guilt of a criminal. As
the army is the most forcible engine of absolute power, Julian applied
himself, with peculiar diligence, to corrupt the religion of his troops,
without whose hearty concurrence every measure must be dangerous and
unsuccessful; and the natural temper of soldiers made this conquest as
easy as it was important. The legions of Gaul devoted themselves to the
faith, as well as to the fortunes, of their victorious leader; and even
before the death of Constantius, he had the satisfaction of announcing to
his friends, that they assisted with fervent devotion, and voracious
appetite, at the sacrifices, which were repeatedly offered in his camp, of
whole hecatombs of fat oxen. The armies of the East, which had been
trained under the standard of the cross, and of Constantius, required a
more artful and expensive mode of persuasion. On the days of solemn and
public festivals, the emperor received the homage, and rewarded the merit,
of the troops. His throne of state was encircled with the military ensigns
of Rome and the republic; the holy name of Christ was erased from the
Labarum; and the symbols of war, of majesty, and of pagan superstition,
were so dexterously blended, that the faithful subject incurred the guilt
of idolatry, when he respectfully saluted the person or image of his
sovereign. The soldiers passed successively in review; and each of them,
before he received from the hand of Julian a liberal donative,
proportioned to his rank and services, was required to cast a few grains
of incense into the flame which burnt upon the altar. Some Christian
confessors might resist, and others might repent; but the far greater
number, allured by the prospect of gold, and awed by the presence of the
emperor, contracted the criminal engagement; and their future perseverance
in the worship of the gods was enforced by every consideration of duty and
of interest. By the frequent repetition of these arts, and at the expense
of sums which would have purchased the service of half the nations of
Scythia, Julian gradually acquired for his troops the imaginary protection
of the gods, and for himself the firm and effectual support of the Roman
legions. It is indeed more than probable, that the restoration and
encouragement of Paganism revealed a multitude of pretended Christians,
who, from motives of temporal advantage, had acquiesced in the religion of
the former reign; and who afterwards returned, with the same flexibility
of conscience, to the faith which was professed by the successors of
Julian.
While the devout monarch incessantly labored to restore and propagate the
religion of his ancestors, he embraced the extraordinary design of
rebuilding the temple of Jerusalem. In a public epistle to the nation or
community of the Jews, dispersed through the provinces, he pities their
misfortunes, condemns their oppressors, praises their constancy, declares
himself their gracious protector, and expresses a pious hope, that after
his return from the Persian war, he may be permitted to pay his grateful
vows to the Almighty in his holy city of Jerusalem. The blind
superstition, and abject slavery, of those unfortunate exiles, must excite
the contempt of a philosophic emperor; but they deserved the friendship of
Julian, by their implacable hatred of the Christian name. The barren
synagogue abhorred and envied the fecundity of the rebellious church; the
power of the Jews was not equal to their malice; but their gravest rabbis
approved the private murder of an apostate; and their seditious clamors
had often awakened the indolence of the Pagan magistrates. Under the reign
of Constantine, the Jews became the subjects of their revolted children
nor was it long before they experienced the bitterness of domestic
tyranny. The civil immunities which had been granted, or confirmed, by
Severus, were gradually repealed by the Christian princes; and a rash
tumult, excited by the Jews of Palestine, seemed to justify the lucrative
modes of oppression which were invented by the bishops and eunuchs of the
court of Constantius. The Jewish patriarch, who was still permitted to
exercise a precarious jurisdiction, held his residence at Tiberias; and
the neighboring cities of Palestine were filled with the remains of a
people who fondly adhered to the promised land. But the edict of Hadrian
was renewed and enforced; and they viewed from afar the walls of the holy
city, which were profaned in their eyes by the triumph of the cross and
the devotion of the Christians.
In the midst of a rocky and barren country, the walls of Jerusalem
enclosed the two mountains of Sion and Acra, within an oval figure of
about three English miles. Towards the south, the upper town, and the
fortress of David, were erected on the lofty ascent of Mount Sion: on the
north side, the buildings of the lower town covered the spacious summit of
Mount Acra; and a part of the hill, distinguished by the name of Moriah,
and levelled by human industry, was crowned with the stately temple of the
Jewish nation. After the final destruction of the temple by the arms of
Titus and Hadrian, a ploughshare was drawn over the consecrated ground, as
a sign of perpetual interdiction. Sion was deserted; and the vacant space
of the lower city was filled with the public and private edifices of the
Ælian colony, which spread themselves over the adjacent hill of
Calvary. The holy places were polluted with mountains of idolatry; and,
either from design or accident, a chapel was dedicated to Venus, on the
spot which had been sanctified by the death and resurrection of Christ. *
Almost three hundred years after those stupendous events, the profane
chapel of Venus was demolished by the order of Constantine; and the
removal of the earth and stones revealed the holy sepulchre to the eyes of
mankind. A magnificent church was erected on that mystic ground, by the
first Christian emperor; and the effects of his pious munificence were
extended to every spot which had been consecrated by the footstep of
patriarchs, of prophets, and of the Son of God.
The passionate desire of contemplating the original monuments of their
redemption attracted to Jerusalem a successive crowd of pilgrims, from the
shores of the Atlantic Ocean, and the most distant countries of the East;
and their piety was authorized by the example of the empress Helena, who
appears to have united the credulity of age with the warm feelings of a
recent conversion. Sages and heroes, who have visited the memorable scenes
of ancient wisdom or glory, have confessed the inspiration of the genius
of the place; and the Christian who knelt before the holy sepulchre,
ascribed his lively faith, and his fervent devotion, to the more immediate
influence of the Divine Spirit. The zeal, perhaps the avarice, of the
clergy of Jerusalem, cherished and multiplied these beneficial visits.
They fixed, by unquestionable tradition, the scene of each memorable
event. They exhibited the instruments which had been used in the passion
of Christ; the nails and the lance that had pierced his hands, his feet,
and his side; the crown of thorns that was planted on his head; the pillar
at which he was scourged; and, above all, they showed the cross on which
he suffered, and which was dug out of the earth in the reign of those
princes, who inserted the symbol of Christianity in the banners of the
Roman legions. Such miracles as seemed necessary to account for its
extraordinary preservation, and seasonable discovery, were gradually
propagated without opposition. The custody of the true cross,
which on Easter Sunday was solemnly exposed to the people, was intrusted
to the bishop of Jerusalem; and he alone might gratify the curious
devotion of the pilgrims, by the gift of small pieces, which they encased
in gold or gems, and carried away in triumph to their respective
countries. But as this gainful branch of commerce must soon have been
annihilated, it was found convenient to suppose, that the marvelous wood
possessed a secret power of vegetation; and that its substance, though
continually diminished, still remained entire and unimpaired. It might
perhaps have been expected, that the influence of the place and the belief
of a perpetual miracle, should have produced some salutary effects on the
morals, as well as on the faith, of the people. Yet the most respectable
of the ecclesiastical writers have been obliged to confess, not only that
the streets of Jerusalem were filled with the incessant tumult of business
and pleasure, but that every species of vice—adultery, theft,
idolatry, poisoning, murder—was familiar to the inhabitants of the
holy city. The wealth and preeminence of the church of Jerusalem excited
the ambition of Arian, as well as orthodox, candidates; and the virtues of
Cyril, who, since his death, has been honored with the title of Saint,
were displayed in the exercise, rather than in the acquisition, of his
episcopal dignity.
The vain and ambitious mind of Julian might aspire to restore the ancient
glory of the temple of Jerusalem. As the Christians were firmly persuaded
that a sentence of everlasting destruction had been pronounced against the
whole fabric of the Mosaic law, the Imperial sophist would have converted
the success of his undertaking into a specious argument against the faith
of prophecy, and the truth of revelation. He was displeased with the
spiritual worship of the synagogue; but he approved the institutions of
Moses, who had not disdained to adopt many of the rites and ceremonies of
Egypt. The local and national deity of the Jews was sincerely adored by a
polytheist, who desired only to multiply the number of the gods; and such
was the appetite of Julian for bloody sacrifice, that his emulation might
be excited by the piety of Solomon, who had offered, at the feast of the
dedication, twenty-two thousand oxen, and one hundred and twenty thousand
sheep. These considerations might influence his designs; but the prospect
of an immediate and important advantage would not suffer the impatient
monarch to expect the remote and uncertain event of the Persian war. He
resolved to erect, without delay, on the commanding eminence of Moriah, a
stately temple, which might eclipse the splendor of the church of the
resurrection on the adjacent hill of Calvary; to establish an order of
priests, whose interested zeal would detect the arts, and resist the
ambition, of their Christian rivals; and to invite a numerous colony of
Jews, whose stern fanaticism would be always prepared to second, and even
to anticipate, the hostile measures of the Pagan government. Among the
friends of the emperor (if the names of emperor, and of friend, are not
incompatible) the first place was assigned, by Julian himself, to the
virtuous and learned Alypius. The humanity of Alypius was tempered by
severe justice and manly fortitude; and while he exercised his abilities
in the civil administration of Britain, he imitated, in his poetical
compositions, the harmony and softness of the odes of Sappho. This
minister, to whom Julian communicated, without reserve, his most careless
levities, and his most serious counsels, received an extraordinary
commission to restore, in its pristine beauty, the temple of Jerusalem;
and the diligence of Alypius required and obtained the strenuous support
of the governor of Palestine. At the call of their great deliverer, the
Jews, from all the provinces of the empire, assembled on the holy mountain
of their fathers; and their insolent triumph alarmed and exasperated the
Christian inhabitants of Jerusalem. The desire of rebuilding the temple
has in every age been the ruling passion of the children of Isræl.
In this propitious moment the men forgot their avarice, and the women
their delicacy; spades and pickaxes of silver were provided by the vanity
of the rich, and the rubbish was transported in mantles of silk and
purple. Every purse was opened in liberal contributions, every hand
claimed a share in the pious labor, and the commands of a great monarch
were executed by the enthusiasm of a whole people.
Yet, on this occasion, the joint efforts of power and enthusiasm were
unsuccessful; and the ground of the Jewish temple, which is now covered by
a Mahometan mosque, still continued to exhibit the same edifying spectacle
of ruin and desolation. Perhaps the absence and death of the emperor, and
the new maxims of a Christian reign, might explain the interruption of an
arduous work, which was attempted only in the last six months of the life
of Julian. But the Christians entertained a natural and pious expectation,
that, in this memorable contest, the honor of religion would be vindicated
by some signal miracle. An earthquake, a whirlwind, and a fiery eruption,
which overturned and scattered the new foundations of the temple, are
attested, with some variations, by contemporary and respectable evidence.
This public event is described by Ambrose, bishop of Milan, in an epistle
to the emperor Theodosius, which must provoke the severe animadversion of
the Jews; by the eloquent Chrysostom, who might appeal to the memory of
the elder part of his congregation at Antioch; and by Gregory Nazianzen,
who published his account of the miracle before the expiration of the same
year. The last of these writers has boldly declared, that this
preternatural event was not disputed by the infidels; and his assertion,
strange as it may seem is confirmed by the unexceptionable testimony of
Ammianus Marcellinus. The philosophic soldier, who loved the virtues,
without adopting the prejudices, of his master, has recorded, in his
judicious and candid history of his own times, the extraordinary obstacles
which interrupted the restoration of the temple of Jerusalem. "Whilst
Alypius, assisted by the governor of the province, urged, with vigor and
diligence, the execution of the work, horrible balls of fire breaking out
near the foundations, with frequent and reiterated attacks, rendered the
place, from time to time, inaccessible to the scorched and blasted
workmen; and the victorious element continuing in this manner obstinately
and resolutely bent, as it were, to drive them to a distance, the
undertaking was abandoned." * Such authority should satisfy a believing,
and must astonish an incredulous, mind. Yet a philosopher may still
require the original evidence of impartial and intelligent spectators. At
this important crisis, any singular accident of nature would assume the
appearance, and produce the effects of a real prodigy. This glorious
deliverance would be speedily improved and magnified by the pious art of
the clergy of Jerusalem, and the active credulity of the Christian world
and, at the distance of twenty years, a Roman historian, careless of
theological disputes, might adorn his work with the specious and splendid
miracle.
The restoration of the Jewish temple was secretly connected with the ruin
of the Christian church. Julian still continued to maintain the freedom of
religious worship, without distinguishing whether this universal
toleration proceeded from his justice or his clemency. He affected to pity
the unhappy Christians, who were mistaken in the most important object of
their lives; but his pity was degraded by contempt, his contempt was
embittered by hatred; and the sentiments of Julian were expressed in a
style of sarcastic wit, which inflicts a deep and deadly wound, whenever
it issues from the mouth of a sovereign. As he was sensible that the
Christians gloried in the name of their Redeemer, he countenanced, and
perhaps enjoined, the use of the less honorable appellation of Galilæans.
He declared, that by the folly of the Galilæans, whom he describes
as a sect of fanatics, contemptible to men, and odious to the gods, the
empire had been reduced to the brink of destruction; and he insinuates in
a public edict, that a frantic patient might sometimes be cured by
salutary violence. An ungenerous distinction was admitted into the mind
and counsels of Julian, that, according to the difference of their
religious sentiments, one part of his subjects deserved his favor and
friendship, while the other was entitled only to the common benefits that
his justice could not refuse to an obedient people. According to a
principle, pregnant with mischief and oppression, the emperor transferred
to the pontiffs of his own religion the management of the liberal
allowances from the public revenue, which had been granted to the church by
the piety of Constantine and his sons. The proud system of clerical honors
and immunities, which had been constructed with so much art and labor, was
levelled to the ground; the hopes of testamentary donations were
intercepted by the rigor of the laws; and the priests of the Christian
sect were confounded with the last and most ignominious class of the
people. Such of these regulations as appeared necessary to check the
ambition and avarice of the ecclesiastics, were soon afterwards imitated
by the wisdom of an orthodox prince. The peculiar distinctions which
policy has bestowed, or superstition has lavished, on the sacerdotal
order, must be confined to those priests who profess the religion of the
state. But the will of the legislator was not exempt from prejudice and
passion; and it was the object of the insidious policy of Julian, to
deprive the Christians of all the temporal honors and advantages which
rendered them respectable in the eyes of the world.
A just and severe censure has been inflicted on the law which prohibited
the Christians from teaching the arts of grammar and rhetoric. The motives
alleged by the emperor to justify this partial and oppressive measure,
might command, during his lifetime, the silence of slaves and the applause
of flatterers. Julian abuses the ambiguous meaning of a word which might
be indifferently applied to the language and the religion of the Greeks:
he contemptuously observes, that the men who exalt the merit of implicit
faith are unfit to claim or to enjoy the advantages of science; and he
vainly contends, that if they refuse to adore the gods of Homer and
Demosthenes, they ought to content themselves with expounding Luke and
Matthew in the church of the Galilæans. In all the cities of the
Roman world, the education of the youth was intrusted to masters of
grammar and rhetoric; who were elected by the magistrates, maintained at
the public expense, and distinguished by many lucrative and honorable
privileges. The edict of Julian appears to have included the physicians,
and professors of all the liberal arts; and the emperor, who reserved to
himself the approbation of the candidates, was authorized by the laws to
corrupt, or to punish, the religious constancy of the most learned of the
Christians. As soon as the resignation of the more obstinate teachers had
established the unrivalled dominion of the Pagan sophists, Julian invited
the rising generation to resort with freedom to the public schools, in a
just confidence, that their tender minds would receive the impressions of
literature and idolatry. If the greatest part of the Christian youth
should be deterred by their own scruples, or by those of their parents,
from accepting this dangerous mode of instruction, they must, at the same
time, relinquish the benefits of a liberal education. Julian had reason to
expect that, in the space of a few years, the church would relapse into
its primæval simplicity, and that the theologians, who possessed an
adequate share of the learning and eloquence of the age, would be
succeeded by a generation of blind and ignorant fanatics, incapable of
defending the truth of their own principles, or of exposing the various
follies of Polytheism.
It was undoubtedly the wish and design of Julian to deprive the Christians
of the advantages of wealth, of knowledge, and of power; but the injustice
of excluding them from all offices of trust and profit seems to have been
the result of his general policy, rather than the immediate consequence of
any positive law. Superior merit might deserve and obtain, some
extraordinary exceptions; but the greater part of the Christian officers
were gradually removed from their employments in the state, the army, and
the provinces. The hopes of future candidates were extinguished by the
declared partiality of a prince, who maliciously reminded them, that it
was unlawful for a Christian to use the sword, either of justice, or of
war; and who studiously guarded the camp and the tribunals with the
ensigns of idolatry. The powers of government were intrusted to the
pagans, who professed an ardent zeal for the religion of their ancestors;
and as the choice of the emperor was often directed by the rules of
divination, the favorites whom he preferred as the most agreeable to the
gods, did not always obtain the approbation of mankind. Under the
administration of their enemies, the Christians had much to suffer, and
more to apprehend. The temper of Julian was averse to cruelty; and the
care of his reputation, which was exposed to the eyes of the universe,
restrained the philosophic monarch from violating the laws of justice and
toleration, which he himself had so recently established. But the
provincial ministers of his authority were placed in a less conspicuous
station. In the exercise of arbitrary power, they consulted the wishes,
rather than the commands, of their sovereign; and ventured to exercise a
secret and vexatious tyranny against the sectaries, on whom they were not
permitted to confer the honors of martyrdom. The emperor, who dissembled
as long as possible his knowledge of the injustice that was exercised in
his name, expressed his real sense of the conduct of his officers, by
gentle reproofs and substantial rewards.
The most effectual instrument of oppression, with which they were armed,
was the law that obliged the Christians to make full and ample
satisfaction for the temples which they had destroyed under the preceding
reign. The zeal of the triumphant church had not always expected the
sanction of the public authority; and the bishops, who were secure of
impunity, had often marched at the head of their congregation, to attack
and demolish the fortresses of the prince of darkness. The consecrated
lands, which had increased the patrimony of the sovereign or of the
clergy, were clearly defined, and easily restored. But on these lands, and
on the ruins of Pagan superstition, the Christians had frequently erected
their own religious edifices: and as it was necessary to remove the church
before the temple could be rebuilt, the justice and piety of the emperor
were applauded by one party, while the other deplored and execrated his
sacrilegious violence. After the ground was cleared, the restitution of
those stately structures which had been levelled with the dust, and of the
precious ornaments which had been converted to Christian uses, swelled
into a very large account of damages and debt. The authors of the injury
had neither the ability nor the inclination to discharge this accumulated
demand: and the impartial wisdom of a legislator would have been displayed
in balancing the adverse claims and complaints, by an equitable and
temperate arbitration. But the whole empire, and particularly the East,
was thrown into confusion by the rash edicts of Julian; and the Pagan
magistrates, inflamed by zeal and revenge, abused the rigorous privilege
of the Roman law, which substitutes, in the place of his inadequate
property, the person of the insolvent debtor. Under the preceding reign,
Mark, bishop of Arethusa, had labored in the conversion of his people with
arms more effectual than those of persuasion. The magistrates required the
full value of a temple which had been destroyed by his intolerant zeal:
but as they were satisfied of his poverty, they desired only to bend his
inflexible spirit to the promise of the slightest compensation. They
apprehended the aged prelate, they inhumanly scourged him, they tore his
beard; and his naked body, anointed with honey, was suspended, in a net,
between heaven and earth, and exposed to the stings of insects and the
rays of a Syrian sun. From this lofty station, Mark still persisted to
glory in his crime, and to insult the impotent rage of his persecutors. He
was at length rescued from their hands, and dismissed to enjoy the honor
of his divine triumph. The Arians celebrated the virtue of their pious
confessor; the Catholics ambitiously claimed his alliance; and the Pagans,
who might be susceptible of shame or remorse, were deterred from the
repetition of such unavailing cruelty. Julian spared his life: but if the
bishop of Arethusa had saved the infancy of Julian, posterity will condemn
the ingratitude, instead of praising the clemency, of the emperor.
At the distance of five miles from Antioch, the Macedonian kings of Syria
had consecrated to Apollo one of the most elegant places of devotion in
the Pagan world. A magnificent temple rose in honor of the god of light;
and his colossal figure almost filled the capacious sanctuary, which was
enriched with gold and gems, and adorned by the skill of the Grecian
artists. The deity was represented in a bending attitude, with a golden
cup in his hand, pouring out a libation on the earth; as if he supplicated
the venerable mother to give to his arms the cold and beauteous Daphne:
for the spot was ennobled by fiction; and the fancy of the Syrian poets
had transported the amorous tale from the banks of the Peneus to those of
the Orontes. The ancient rites of Greece were imitated by the royal colony
of Antioch. A stream of prophecy, which rivalled the truth and reputation
of the Delphic oracle, flowed from the Castalian
fountain of Daphne. In the adjacent fields a stadium was built by a
special privilege, which had been purchased from Elis; the Olympic games
were celebrated at the expense of the city; and a revenue of thirty
thousand pounds sterling was annually applied to the public pleasures. The
perpetual resort of pilgrims and spectators insensibly formed, in the
neighborhood of the temple, the stately and populous village of Daphne,
which emulated the splendor, without acquiring the title, of a provincial
city. The temple and the village were deeply bosomed in a thick grove of
laurels and cypresses, which reached as far as a circumference of ten
miles, and formed in the most sultry summers a cool and impenetrable
shade. A thousand streams of the purest water, issuing from every hill,
preserved the verdure of the earth, and the temperature of the air; the
senses were gratified with harmonious sounds and aromatic odors; and the
peaceful grove was consecrated to health and joy, to luxury and love. The
vigorous youth pursued, like Apollo, the object of his desires; and the
blushing maid was warned, by the fate of Daphne, to shun the folly of
unseasonable coyness. The soldier and the philosopher wisely avoided the
temptation of this sensual paradise: where pleasure, assuming the
character of religion, imperceptibly dissolved the firmness of manly
virtue. But the groves of Daphne continued for many ages to enjoy the
veneration of natives and strangers; the privileges of the holy ground
were enlarged by the munificence of succeeding emperors; and every
generation added new ornaments to the splendor of the temple.
When Julian, on the day of the annual festival, hastened to adore the
Apollo of Daphne, his devotion was raised to the highest pitch of
eagerness and impatience. His lively imagination anticipated the grateful
pomp of victims, of libations and of incense; a long procession of youths
and virgins, clothed in white robes, the symbol of their innocence; and
the tumultuous concourse of an innumerable people. But the zeal of Antioch
was diverted, since the reign of Christianity, into a different channel.
Instead of hecatombs of fat oxen sacrificed by the tribes of a wealthy
city to their tutelar deity the emperor complains that he found only a
single goose, provided at the expense of a priest, the pale and solitary
inhabitant of this decayed temple. The altar was deserted, the oracle had
been reduced to silence, and the holy ground was profaned by the
introduction of Christian and funereal rites. After Babylas (a bishop of
Antioch, who died in prison in the persecution of Decius) had rested near
a century in his grave, his body, by the order of Cæsar Gallus, was
transported into the midst of the grove of Daphne. A magnificent church
was erected over his remains; a portion of the sacred lands was usurped
for the maintenance of the clergy, and for the burial of the Christians at
Antioch, who were ambitious of lying at the feet of their bishop; and the
priests of Apollo retired, with their affrighted and indignant votaries.
As soon as another revolution seemed to restore the fortune of Paganism,
the church of St. Babylas was demolished, and new buildings were added to
the mouldering edifice which had been raised by the piety of Syrian kings.
But the first and most serious care of Julian was to deliver his oppressed
deity from the odious presence of the dead and living Christians, who had
so effectually suppressed the voice of fraud or enthusiasm. The scene of
infection was purified, according to the forms of ancient rituals; the
bodies were decently removed; and the ministers of the church were
permitted to convey the remains of St. Babylas to their former habitation
within the walls of Antioch. The modest behavior which might have assuaged
the jealousy of a hostile government was neglected, on this occasion, by
the zeal of the Christians. The lofty car, that transported the relics of
Babylas, was followed, and accompanied, and received, by an innumerable
multitude; who chanted, with thundering acclamations, the Psalms of David
the most expressive of their contempt for idols and idolaters. The return
of the saint was a triumph; and the triumph was an insult on the religion
of the emperor, who exerted his pride to dissemble his resentment. During
the night which terminated this indiscreet procession, the temple of
Daphne was in flames; the statue of Apollo was consumed; and the walls of
the edifice were left a naked and awful monument of ruin. The Christians
of Antioch asserted, with religious confidence, that the powerful
intercession of St. Babylas had pointed the lightnings of heaven against
the devoted roof: but as Julian was reduced to the alternative of
believing either a crime or a miracle, he chose, without hesitation,
without evidence, but with some color of probability, to impute the fire
of Daphne to the revenge of the Galilæans. Their offence, had it
been sufficiently proved, might have justified the retaliation, which was
immediately executed by the order of Julian, of shutting the doors, and
confiscating the wealth, of the cathedral of Antioch. To discover the
criminals who were guilty of the tumult, of the fire, or of secreting the
riches of the church, several of the ecclesiastics were tortured; and a
Presbyter, of the name of Theodoret, was beheaded by the sentence of the
Count of the East. But this hasty act was blamed by the emperor; who
lamented, with real or affected concern, that the imprudent zeal of his
ministers would tarnish his reign with the disgrace of persecution.
The zeal of the ministers of Julian was instantly checked by the frown of
their sovereign; but when the father of his country declares himself the
leader of a faction, the license of popular fury cannot easily be
restrained, nor consistently punished. Julian, in a public composition,
applauds the devotion and loyalty of the holy cities of Syria, whose pious
inhabitants had destroyed, at the first signal, the sepulchres of the
Galilæans; and faintly complains, that they had revenged the
injuries of the gods with less moderation than he should have recommended.
This imperfect and reluctant confession may appear to confirm the
ecclesiastical narratives; that in the cities of Gaza, Ascalon, Cæsarea,
Heliopolis, &c., the Pagans abused, without prudence or remorse, the
moment of their prosperity. That the unhappy objects of their cruelty were
released from torture only by death; and as their mangled bodies were
dragged through the streets, they were pierced (such was the universal
rage) by the spits of cooks, and the distaffs of enraged women; and that
the entrails of Christian priests and virgins, after they had been tasted
by those bloody fanatics, were mixed with barley, and contemptuously
thrown to the unclean animals of the city. Such scenes of religious
madness exhibit the most contemptible and odious picture of human nature;
but the massacre of Alexandria attracts still more attention, from the
certainty of the fact, the rank of the victims, and the splendor of the
capital of Egypt.
George, from his parents or his education, surnamed the Cappadocian, was
born at Epiphania in Cilicia, in a fuller's shop. From this obscure and
servile origin he raised himself by the talents of a parasite; and the
patrons, whom he assiduously flattered, procured for their worthless
dependent a lucrative commission, or contract, to supply the army with
bacon. His employment was mean; he rendered it infamous. He accumulated
wealth by the basest arts of fraud and corruption; but his malversations
were so notorious, that George was compelled to escape from the pursuits
of justice. After this disgrace, in which he appears to have saved his
fortune at the expense of his honor, he embraced, with real or affected
zeal, the profession of Arianism. From the love, or the ostentation, of
learning, he collected a valuable library of history rhetoric, philosophy,
and theology, and the choice of the prevailing faction promoted George of
Cappadocia to the throne of Athanasius. The entrance of the new archbishop
was that of a Barbarian conqueror; and each moment of his reign was
polluted by cruelty and avarice. The Catholics of Alexandria and Egypt
were abandoned to a tyrant, qualified, by nature and education, to
exercise the office of persecution; but he oppressed with an impartial
hand the various inhabitants of his extensive diocese. The primate of
Egypt assumed the pomp and insolence of his lofty station; but he still
betrayed the vices of his base and servile extraction. The merchants of
Alexandria were impoverished by the unjust, and almost universal,
monopoly, which he acquired, of nitre, salt, paper, funerals, &c.: and
the spiritual father of a great people condescended to practise the vile
and pernicious arts of an informer. The Alexandrians could never forget,
nor forgive, the tax, which he suggested, on all the houses of the city;
under an obsolete claim, that the royal founder had conveyed to his
successors, the Ptolemies and the Cæsars, the perpetual property of
the soil. The Pagans, who had been flattered with the hopes of freedom and
toleration, excited his devout avarice; and the rich temples of Alexandria
were either pillaged or insulted by the haughty prince, who exclaimed, in
a loud and threatening tone, "How long will these sepulchres be permitted
to stand?" Under the reign of Constantius, he was expelled by the fury, or
rather by the justice, of the people; and it was not without a violent
struggle, that the civil and military powers of the state could restore
his authority, and gratify his revenge. The messenger who proclaimed at
Alexandria the accession of Julian, announced the downfall of the
archbishop. George, with two of his obsequious ministers, Count Diodorus,
and Dracontius, master of the mint were ignominiously dragged in chains to
the public prison. At the end of twenty-four days, the prison was forced
open by the rage of a superstitious multitude, impatient of the tedious
forms of judicial proceedings. The enemies of gods and men expired under
their cruel insults; the lifeless bodies of the archbishop and his
associates were carried in triumph through the streets on the back of a
camel; * and the inactivity of the Athanasian party was esteemed a shining
example of evangelical patience. The remains of these guilty wretches were
thrown into the sea; and the popular leaders of the tumult declared their
resolution to disappoint the devotion of the Christians, and to intercept
the future honors of these martyrs, who had been
punished, like their predecessors, by the enemies of their religion. The
fears of the Pagans were just, and their precautions ineffectual. The
meritorious death of the archbishop obliterated the memory of his life.
The rival of Athanasius was dear and sacred to the Arians, and the seeming
conversion of those sectaries introduced his worship into the bosom of the
Catholic church. The odious stranger, disguising every circumstance of
time and place, assumed the mask of a martyr, a saint, and a Christian
hero; and the infamous George of Cappadocia has been transformed into the
renowned St. George of England, the patron of arms, of chivalry, and of
the garter.
About the same time that Julian was informed of the tumult of Alexandria,
he received intelligence from Edessa, that the proud and wealthy faction
of the Arians had insulted the weakness of the Valentinians, and committed
such disorders as ought not to be suffered with impunity in a
well-regulated state. Without expecting the slow forms of justice, the
exasperated prince directed his mandate to the magistrates of Edessa, by
which he confiscated the whole property of the church: the money was
distributed among the soldiers; the lands were added to the domain; and
this act of oppression was aggravated by the most ungenerous irony. "I
show myself," says Julian, "the true friend of the Galilæans. Their
admirable law has promised the kingdom of heaven
to the poor; and they will advance with more diligence in the paths of
virtue and salvation, when they are relieved by my assistance from the
load of temporal possessions. Take care," pursued the monarch, in a more
serious tone, "take care how you provoke my patience and humanity. If
these disorders continue, I will revenge on the magistrates the crimes of
the people; and you will have reason to dread, not only confiscation and
exile, but fire and the sword." The tumults of Alexandria were doubtless
of a more bloody and dangerous nature: but a Christian bishop had fallen
by the hands of the Pagans; and the public epistle of Julian affords a
very lively proof of the partial spirit of his administration. His
reproaches to the citizens of Alexandria are mingled with expressions of
esteem and tenderness; and he laments, that, on this occasion, they should
have departed from the gentle and generous manners which attested their
Grecian extraction. He gravely censures the offence which they had
committed against the laws of justice and humanity; but he recapitulates,
with visible complacency, the intolerable provocations which they had so
long endured from the impious tyranny of George of Cappadocia. Julian
admits the principle, that a wise and vigorous government should chastise
the insolence of the people; yet, in consideration of their founder
Alexander, and of Serapis their tutelar deity, he grants a free and
gracious pardon to the guilty city, for which he again feels the affection
of a brother.
After the tumult of Alexandria had subsided, Athanasius, amidst the public
acclamations, seated himself on the throne from whence his unworthy
competitor had been precipitated: and as the zeal of the archbishop was
tempered with discretion, the exercise of his authority tended not to
inflame, but to reconcile, the minds of the people. His pastoral labors
were not confined to the narrow limits of Egypt. The state of the
Christian world was present to his active and capacious mind; and the age,
the merit, the reputation of Athanasius, enabled him to assume, in a
moment of danger, the office of Ecclesiastical Dictator. Three years were
not yet elapsed since the majority of the bishops of the West had
ignorantly, or reluctantly, subscribed the Confession of Rimini. They
repented, they believed, but they dreaded the unseasonable rigor of their
orthodox brethren; and if their pride was stronger than their faith, they
might throw themselves into the arms of the Arians, to escape the
indignity of a public penance, which must degrade them to the condition of
obscure laymen. At the same time the domestic differences concerning the
union and distinction of the divine persons, were agitated with some heat
among the Catholic doctors; and the progress of this metaphysical
controversy seemed to threaten a public and lasting division of the Greek
and Latin churches. By the wisdom of a select synod, to which the name and
presence of Athanasius gave the authority of a general council, the
bishops, who had unwarily deviated into error, were admitted to the
communion of the church, on the easy condition of subscribing the Nicene
Creed; without any formal acknowledgment of their past fault, or any
minute definition of their scholastic opinions. The advice of the primate
of Egypt had already prepared the clergy of Gaul and Spain, of Italy and
Greece, for the reception of this salutary measure; and, notwithstanding
the opposition of some ardent spirits, the fear of the common enemy
promoted the peace and harmony of the Christians.
The skill and diligence of the primate of Egypt had improved the season of
tranquillity, before it was interrupted by the hostile edicts of the
emperor. Julian, who despised the Christians, honored Athanasius with his
sincere and peculiar hatred. For his sake alone, he introduced an
arbitrary distinction, repugnant at least to the spirit of his former
declarations. He maintained, that the Galilæans, whom he had
recalled from exile, were not restored, by that general indulgence, to the
possession of their respective churches; and he expressed his
astonishment, that a criminal, who had been repeatedly condemned by the
judgment of the emperors, should dare to insult the majesty of the laws,
and insolently usurp the archiepiscopal throne of Alexandria, without
expecting the orders of his sovereign. As a punishment for the imaginary
offence, he again banished Athanasius from the city; and he was pleased to
suppose, that this act of justice would be highly agreeable to his pious
subjects. The pressing solicitations of the people soon convinced him,
that the majority of the Alexandrians were Christians; and that the
greatest part of the Christians were firmly attached to the cause of their
oppressed primate. But the knowledge of their sentiments, instead of
persuading him to recall his decree, provoked him to extend to all Egypt
the term of the exile of Athanasius. The zeal of the multitude rendered
Julian still more inexorable: he was alarmed by the danger of leaving at
the head of a tumultuous city, a daring and popular leader; and the
language of his resentment discovers the opinion which he entertained of
the courage and abilities of Athanasius. The execution of the sentence was
still delayed, by the caution or negligence of Ecdicius, præfect of
Egypt, who was at length awakened from his lethargy by a severe reprimand.
"Though you neglect," says Julian, "to write to me on any other subject,
at least it is your duty to inform me of your conduct towards Athanasius,
the enemy of the gods. My intentions have been long since communicated to
you. I swear by the great Serapis, that unless, on the calends of
December, Athanasius has departed from Alexandria, nay, from Egypt, the
officers of your government shall pay a fine of one hundred pounds of
gold. You know my temper: I am slow to condemn, but I am still slower to
forgive." This epistle was enforced by a short postscript, written with
the emperor's own hand. "The contempt that is shown for all the gods fills
me with grief and indignation. There is nothing that I should see, nothing
that I should hear, with more pleasure, than the expulsion of Athanasius
from all Egypt. The abominable wretch! Under my reign, the baptism of
several Grecian ladies of the highest rank has been the effect of his
persecutions." The death of Athanasius was not expressly
commanded; but the præfect of Egypt understood that it was safer for
him to exceed, than to neglect, the orders of an irritated master. The
archbishop prudently retired to the monasteries of the Desert; eluded,
with his usual dexterity, the snares of the enemy; and lived to triumph
over the ashes of a prince, who, in words of formidable import, had
declared his wish that the whole venom of the Galilæan school were
contained in the single person of Athanasius.
I have endeavored faithfully to represent the artful system by which
Julian proposed to obtain the effects, without incurring the guilt, or
reproach, of persecution. But if the deadly spirit of fanaticism perverted
the heart and understanding of a virtuous prince, it must, at the same
time, be confessed that the real sufferings of
the Christians were inflamed and magnified by human passions and religious
enthusiasm. The meekness and resignation which had distinguished the
primitive disciples of the gospel, was the object of the applause, rather
than of the imitation of their successors. The Christians, who had now
possessed above forty years the civil and ecclesiastical government of the
empire, had contracted the insolent vices of prosperity, and the habit of
believing that the saints alone were entitled to reign over the earth. As
soon as the enmity of Julian deprived the clergy of the privileges which
had been conferred by the favor of Constantine, they complained of the
most cruel oppression; and the free toleration of idolaters and heretics
was a subject of grief and scandal to the orthodox party. The acts of
violence, which were no longer countenanced by the magistrates, were still
committed by the zeal of the people. At Pessinus, the altar of Cybele was
overturned almost in the presence of the emperor; and in the city of Cæsarea
in Cappadocia, the temple of Fortune, the sole place of worship which had
been left to the Pagans, was destroyed by the rage of a popular tumult. On
these occasions, a prince, who felt for the honor of the gods, was not
disposed to interrupt the course of justice; and his mind was still more
deeply exasperated, when he found that the fanatics, who had deserved and
suffered the punishment of incendiaries, were rewarded with the honors of
martyrdom. The Christian subjects of Julian were assured of the hostile
designs of their sovereign; and, to their jealous apprehension, every
circumstance of his government might afford some grounds of discontent and
suspicion. In the ordinary administration of the laws, the Christians, who
formed so large a part of the people, must frequently be condemned: but
their indulgent brethren, without examining the merits of the cause,
presumed their innocence, allowed their claims, and imputed the severity
of their judge to the partial malice of religious persecution. These
present hardships, intolerable as they might appear, were represented as a
slight prelude of the impending calamities. The Christians considered
Julian as a cruel and crafty tyrant; who suspended the execution of his
revenge till he should return victorious from the Persian war. They
expected, that as soon as he had triumphed over the foreign enemies of
Rome, he would lay aside the irksome mask of dissimulation; that the
amphitheatre would stream with the blood of hermits and bishops; and that
the Christians who still persevered in the profession of the faith, would
be deprived of the common benefits of nature and society. Every calumny
that could wound the reputation of the Apostate, was credulously embraced
by the fears and hatred of his adversaries; and their indiscreet clamors
provoked the temper of a sovereign, whom it was their duty to respect, and
their interest to flatter. They still protested, that prayers and tears
were their only weapons against the impious tyrant, whose head they
devoted to the justice of offended Heaven. But they insinuated, with
sullen resolution, that their submission was no longer the effect of
weakness; and that, in the imperfect state of human virtue, the patience,
which is founded on principle, may be exhausted by persecution. It is
impossible to determine how far the zeal of Julian would have prevailed
over his good sense and humanity; but if we seriously reflect on the
strength and spirit of the church, we shall be convinced, that before the
emperor could have extinguished the religion of Christ, he must have
involved his country in the horrors of a civil war.
Residence Of Julian At Antioch.—His Successful Expedition Against The Persians.—Passage Of The Tigris—The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Election Of Jovian.—He Saves The Roman Army By A Disgraceful Treaty.
The philosophical fable which Julian composed under the name of the Cæsars,
is one of the most agreeable and instructive productions of ancient wit.
During the freedom and equality of the days of the Saturnalia, Romulus
prepared a feast for the deities of Olympus, who had adopted him as a
worthy associate, and for the Roman princes, who had reigned over his
martial people, and the vanquished nations of the earth. The immortals
were placed in just order on their thrones of state, and the table of the
Cæsars was spread below the Moon in the upper region of the air. The
tyrants, who would have disgraced the society of gods and men, were thrown
headlong, by the inexorable Nemesis, into the Tartarean abyss. The rest of
the Cæsars successively advanced to their seats; and as they passed,
the vices, the defects, the blemishes of their respective characters, were
maliciously noticed by old Silenus, a laughing moralist, who disguised the
wisdom of a philosopher under the mask of a Bacchanal. As soon as the
feast was ended, the voice of Mercury proclaimed the will of Jupiter, that
a celestial crown should be the reward of superior merit. Julius Cæsar,
Augustus, Trajan, and Marcus Antoninus, were selected as the most
illustrious candidates; the effeminate Constantine was not excluded from
this honorable competition, and the great Alexander was invited to dispute
the prize of glory with the Roman heroes. Each of the candidates was
allowed to display the merit of his own exploits; but, in the judgment of
the gods, the modest silence of Marcus pleaded more powerfully than the
elaborate orations of his haughty rivals. When the judges of this awful
contest proceeded to examine the heart, and to scrutinize the springs of
action, the superiority of the Imperial Stoic appeared still more decisive
and conspicuous. Alexander and Cæsar, Augustus, Trajan, and
Constantine, acknowledged, with a blush, that fame, or power, or pleasure
had been the important object of their labors:
but the gods themselves beheld, with reverence and love, a virtuous
mortal, who had practised on the throne the lessons of philosophy; and
who, in a state of human imperfection, had aspired to imitate the moral
attributes of the Deity. The value of this agreeable composition (the Cæsars
of Julian) is enhanced by the rank of the author. A prince, who
delineates, with freedom, the vices and virtues of his predecessors,
subscribes, in every line, the censure or approbation of his own conduct.
In the cool moments of reflection, Julian preferred the useful and
benevolent virtues of Antoninus; but his ambitious spirit was inflamed by
the glory of Alexander; and he solicited, with equal ardor, the esteem of
the wise, and the applause of the multitude. In the season of life when
the powers of the mind and body enjoy the most active vigor, the emperor
who was instructed by the experience, and animated by the success, of the
German war, resolved to signalize his reign by some more splendid and
memorable achievement. The ambassadors of the East, from the continent of
India, and the Isle of Ceylon, had respectfully saluted the Roman purple.
The nations of the West esteemed and dreaded the personal virtues of
Julian, both in peace and war. He despised the trophies of a Gothic
victory, and was satisfied that the rapacious Barbarians of the Danube
would be restrained from any future violation of the faith of treaties by
the terror of his name, and the additional fortifications with which he
strengthened the Thracian and Illyrian frontiers. The successor of Cyrus
and Artaxerxes was the only rival whom he deemed worthy of his arms; and
he resolved, by the final conquest of Persia, to chastise the naughty
nation which had so long resisted and insulted the majesty of Rome. As
soon as the Persian monarch was informed that the throne of Constantius
was filled by a prince of a very different character, he condescended to
make some artful, or perhaps sincere, overtures towards a negotiation of
peace. But the pride of Sapor was astonished by the firmness of Julian;
who sternly declared, that he would never consent to hold a peaceful
conference among the flames and ruins of the cities of Mesopotamia; and
who added, with a smile of contempt, that it was needless to treat by
ambassadors, as he himself had determined to visit speedily the court of
Persia. The impatience of the emperor urged the diligence of the military
preparations. The generals were named; and Julian, marching from
Constantinople through the provinces of Asia Minor, arrived at Antioch
about eight months after the death of his predecessor. His ardent desire
to march into the heart of Persia, was checked by the indispensable duty
of regulating the state of the empire; by his zeal to revive the worship
of the gods; and by the advice of his wisest friends; who represented the
necessity of allowing the salutary interval of winter quarters, to restore
the exhausted strength of the legions of Gaul, and the discipline and
spirit of the Eastern troops. Julian was persuaded to fix, till the
ensuing spring, his residence at Antioch, among a people maliciously
disposed to deride the haste, and to censure the delays, of their
sovereign.
If Julian had flattered himself, that his personal connection with the
capital of the East would be productive of mutual satisfaction to the
prince and people, he made a very false estimate of his own character, and
of the manners of Antioch. The warmth of the climate disposed the natives
to the most intemperate enjoyment of tranquillity and opulence; and the
lively licentiousness of the Greeks was blended with the hereditary
softness of the Syrians. Fashion was the only law, pleasure the only
pursuit, and the splendor of dress and furniture was the only distinction
of the citizens of Antioch. The arts of luxury were honored; the serious
and manly virtues were the subject of ridicule; and the contempt for
female modesty and reverent age announced the universal corruption of the
capital of the East. The love of spectacles was the taste, or rather
passion, of the Syrians; the most skilful artists were procured from the
adjacent cities; a considerable share of the revenue was devoted to the
public amusements; and the magnificence of the games of the theatre and
circus was considered as the happiness and as the glory of Antioch. The
rustic manners of a prince who disdained such glory, and was insensible of
such happiness, soon disgusted the delicacy of his subjects; and the
effeminate Orientals could neither imitate, nor admire, the severe
simplicity which Julian always maintained, and sometimes affected. The
days of festivity, consecrated, by ancient custom, to the honor of the
gods, were the only occasions in which Julian relaxed his philosophic
severity; and those festivals were the only days in which the Syrians of
Antioch could reject the allurements of pleasure. The majority of the
people supported the glory of the Christian name, which had been first
invented by their ancestors: they contended themselves with disobeying the
moral precepts, but they were scrupulously attached to the speculative
doctrines of their religion. The church of Antioch was distracted by
heresy and schism; but the Arians and the Athanasians, the followers of
Meletius and those of Paulinus, were actuated by the same pious hatred of
their common adversary.
The strongest prejudice was entertained against the character of an
apostate, the enemy and successor of a prince who had engaged the
affections of a very numerous sect; and the removal of St. Babylas excited
an implacable opposition to the person of Julian. His subjects complained,
with superstitious indignation, that famine had pursued the emperor's
steps from Constantinople to Antioch; and the discontent of a hungry
people was exasperated by the injudicious attempt to relieve their
distress. The inclemency of the season had affected the harvests of Syria;
and the price of bread, in the markets of Antioch, had naturally risen in
proportion to the scarcity of corn. But the fair and reasonable proportion
was soon violated by the rapacious arts of monopoly. In this unequal
contest, in which the produce of the land is claimed by one party as his
exclusive property, is used by another as a lucrative object of trade, and
is required by a third for the daily and necessary support of life, all
the profits of the intermediate agents are accumulated on the head of the
defenceless customers. The hardships of their situation were exaggerated
and increased by their own impatience and anxiety; and the apprehension of
a scarcity gradually produced the appearances of a famine. When the
luxurious citizens of Antioch complained of the high price of poultry and
fish, Julian publicly declared, that a frugal city ought to be satisfied
with a regular supply of wine, oil, and bread; but he acknowledged, that
it was the duty of a sovereign to provide for the subsistence of his
people. With this salutary view, the emperor ventured on a very dangerous
and doubtful step, of fixing, by legal authority, the value of corn. He
enacted, that, in a time of scarcity, it should be sold at a price which
had seldom been known in the most plentiful years; and that his own
example might strengthen his laws, he sent into the market four hundred
and twenty-two thousand modii, or measures,
which were drawn by his order from the granaries of Hierapolis, of
Chalcis, and even of Egypt. The consequences might have been foreseen, and
were soon felt. The Imperial wheat was purchased by the rich merchants;
the proprietors of land, or of corn, withheld from the city the accustomed
supply; and the small quantities that appeared in the market were secretly
sold at an advanced and illegal price. Julian still continued to applaud
his own policy, treated the complaints of the people as a vain and
ungrateful murmur, and convinced Antioch that he had inherited the
obstinacy, though not the cruelty, of his brother Gallus. The
remonstrances of the municipal senate served only to exasperate his
inflexible mind. He was persuaded, perhaps with truth, that the senators
of Antioch who possessed lands, or were concerned in trade, had themselves
contributed to the calamities of their country; and he imputed the
disrespectful boldness which they assumed, to the sense, not of public
duty, but of private interest. The whole body, consisting of two hundred
of the most noble and wealthy citizens, were sent, under a guard, from the
palace to the prison; and though they were permitted, before the close of
evening, to return to their respective houses, the emperor himself could
not obtain the forgiveness which he had so easily granted. The same
grievances were still the subject of the same complaints, which were
industriously circulated by the wit and levity of the Syrian Greeks.
During the licentious days of the Saturnalia, the streets of the city
resounded with insolent songs, which derided the laws, the religion, the
personal conduct, and even the beard, of the
emperor; the spirit of Antioch was manifested by the connivance of the
magistrates, and the applause of the multitude. The disciple of Socrates
was too deeply affected by these popular insults; but the monarch, endowed
with a quick sensibility, and possessed of absolute power, refused his
passions the gratification of revenge. A tyrant might have proscribed,
without distinction, the lives and fortunes of the citizens of Antioch;
and the unwarlike Syrians must have patiently submitted to the lust, the
rapaciousness and the cruelty, of the faithful legions of Gaul. A milder
sentence might have deprived the capital of the East of its honors and
privileges; and the courtiers, perhaps the subjects, of Julian, would have
applauded an act of justice, which asserted the dignity of the supreme
magistrate of the republic. But instead of abusing, or exerting, the
authority of the state, to revenge his personal injuries, Julian contented
himself with an inoffensive mode of retaliation, which it would be in the
power of few princes to employ. He had been insulted by satires and
libels; in his turn, he composed, under the title of the Enemy
of the Beard, an ironical confession of his own faults, and
a severe satire on the licentious and effeminate manners of Antioch. This
Imperial reply was publicly exposed before the gates of the palace; and
the Misopogon still remains a singular monument of the resentment, the
wit, the humanity, and the indiscretion of Julian. Though he affected to
laugh, he could not forgive. His contempt was expressed, and his revenge
might be gratified, by the nomination of a governor worthy only of such
subjects; and the emperor, forever renouncing the ungrateful city,
proclaimed his resolution to pass the ensuing winter at Tarsus in Cilicia.
Yet Antioch possessed one citizen, whose genius and virtues might atone,
in the opinion of Julian, for the vice and folly of his country. The
sophist Libanius was born in the capital of the East; he publicly
professed the arts of rhetoric and declamation at Nice, Nicomedia,
Constantinople, Athens, and, during the remainder of his life, at Antioch.
His school was assiduously frequented by the Grecian youth; his disciples,
who sometimes exceeded the number of eighty, celebrated their incomparable
master; and the jealousy of his rivals, who persecuted him from one city
to another, confirmed the favorable opinion which Libanius ostentatiously
displayed of his superior merit. The preceptors of Julian had extorted a
rash but solemn assurance, that he would never attend the lectures of
their adversary: the curiosity of the royal youth was checked and
inflamed: he secretly procured the writings of this dangerous sophist, and
gradually surpassed, in the perfect imitation of his style, the most
laborious of his domestic pupils. When Julian ascended the throne, he
declared his impatience to embrace and reward the Syrian sophist, who had
preserved, in a degenerate age, the Grecian purity of taste, of manners,
and of religion. The emperor's prepossession was increased and justified
by the discreet pride of his favorite. Instead of pressing, with the
foremost of the crowd, into the palace of Constantinople, Libanius calmly
expected his arrival at Antioch; withdrew from court on the first symptoms
of coldness and indifference; required a formal invitation for each visit;
and taught his sovereign an important lesson, that he might command the
obedience of a subject, but that he must deserve the attachment of a
friend. The sophists of every age, despising, or affecting to despise, the
accidental distinctions of birth and fortune, reserve their esteem for the
superior qualities of the mind, with which they themselves are so
plentifully endowed. Julian might disdain the acclamations of a venal
court, who adored the Imperial purple; but he was deeply flattered by the
praise, the admonition, the freedom, and the envy of an independent
philosopher, who refused his favors, loved his person, celebrated his
fame, and protected his memory. The voluminous writings of Libanius still
exist; for the most part, they are the vain and idle compositions of an
orator, who cultivated the science of words; the productions of a recluse
student, whose mind, regardless of his contemporaries, was incessantly
fixed on the Trojan war and the Athenian commonwealth. Yet the sophist of
Antioch sometimes descended from this imaginary elevation; he entertained
a various and elaborate correspondence; he praised the virtues of his own
times; he boldly arraigned the abuse of public and private life; and he
eloquently pleaded the cause of Antioch against the just resentment of
Julian and Theodosius. It is the common calamity of old age, to lose
whatever might have rendered it desirable; but Libanius experienced the
peculiar misfortune of surviving the religion and the sciences, to which
he had consecrated his genius. The friend of Julian was an indignant
spectator of the triumph of Christianity; and his bigotry, which darkened
the prospect of the visible world, did not inspire Libanius with any
lively hopes of celestial glory and happiness.
The martial impatience of Julian urged him to take the field in the
beginning of the spring; and he dismissed, with contempt and reproach, the
senate of Antioch, who accompanied the emperor beyond the limits of their
own territory, to which he was resolved never to return. After a laborious
march of two days, he halted on the third at Beræa, or Aleppo, where
he had the mortification of finding a senate almost entirely Christian;
who received with cold and formal demonstrations of respect the eloquent
sermon of the apostle of paganism. The son of one of the most illustrious
citizens of Beræa, who had embraced, either from interest or
conscience, the religion of the emperor, was disinherited by his angry
parent. The father and the son were invited to the Imperial table. Julian,
placing himself between them, attempted, without success, to inculcate the
lesson and example of toleration; supported, with affected calmness, the
indiscreet zeal of the aged Christian, who seemed to forget the sentiments
of nature, and the duty of a subject; and at length, turning towards the
afflicted youth, "Since you have lost a father," said he, "for my sake, it
is incumbent on me to supply his place." The emperor was received in a
manner much more agreeable to his wishes at Batnæ, * a small town
pleasantly seated in a grove of cypresses, about twenty miles from the
city of Hierapolis. The solemn rites of sacrifice were decently prepared
by the inhabitants of Batnæ, who seemed attached to the worship of
their tutelar deities, Apollo and Jupiter; but the serious piety of Julian
was offended by the tumult of their applause; and he too clearly
discerned, that the smoke which arose from their altars was the incense of
flattery, rather than of devotion. The ancient and magnificent temple
which had sanctified, for so many ages, the city of Hierapolis, no longer
subsisted; and the consecrated wealth, which afforded a liberal
maintenance to more than three hundred priests, might hasten its downfall.
Yet Julian enjoyed the satisfaction of embracing a philosopher and a
friend, whose religious firmness had withstood the pressing and repeated
solicitations of Constantius and Gallus, as often as those princes lodged
at his house, in their passage through Hierapolis. In the hurry of
military preparation, and the careless confidence of a familiar
correspondence, the zeal of Julian appears to have been lively and
uniform. He had now undertaken an important and difficult war; and the
anxiety of the event rendered him still more attentive to observe and
register the most trifling presages, from which, according to the rules of
divination, any knowledge of futurity could be derived. He informed
Libanius of his progress as far as Hierapolis, by an elegant epistle,
which displays the facility of his genius, and his tender friendship for
the sophist of Antioch.
Hierapolis, * situate almost on the banks of the Euphrates, had been
appointed for the general rendezvous of the Roman troops, who immediately
passed the great river on a bridge of boats, which was previously
constructed. If the inclinations of Julian had been similar to those of
his predecessor, he might have wasted the active and important season of
the year in the circus of Samosata or in the churches of Edessa. But as
the warlike emperor, instead of Constantius, had chosen Alexander for his
model, he advanced without delay to Carrhæ, a very ancient city of
Mesopotamia, at the distance of fourscore miles from Hierapolis. The
temple of the Moon attracted the devotion of Julian; but the halt of a few
days was principally employed in completing the immense preparations of
the Persian war. The secret of the expedition had hitherto remained in his
own breast; but as Carrhæ is the point of separation of the two
great roads, he could no longer conceal whether it was his design to
attack the dominions of Sapor on the side of the Tigris, or on that of the
Euphrates. The emperor detached an army of thirty thousand men, under the
command of his kinsman Procopius, and of Sebastian, who had been duke of
Egypt. They were ordered to direct their march towards Nisibis, and to
secure the frontier from the desultory incursions of the enemy, before
they attempted the passage of the Tigris. Their subsequent operations were
left to the discretion of the generals; but Julian expected, that after
wasting with fire and sword the fertile districts of Media and Adiabene,
they might arrive under the walls of Ctesiphon at the same time that he
himself, advancing with equal steps along the banks of the Euphrates,
should besiege the capital of the Persian monarchy. The success of this
well-concerted plan depended, in a great measure, on the powerful and
ready assistance of the king of Armenia, who, without exposing the safety
of his own dominions, might detach an army of four thousand horse, and
twenty thousand foot, to the assistance of the Romans. But the feeble
Arsaces Tiranus, king of Armenia, had degenerated still more shamefully
than his father Chosroes, from the manly virtues of the great Tiridates;
and as the pusillanimous monarch was averse to any enterprise of danger
and glory, he could disguise his timid indolence by the more decent
excuses of religion and gratitude. He expressed a pious attachment to the
memory of Constantius, from whose hands he had received in marriage
Olympias, the daughter of the præfect Ablavius; and the alliance of
a female, who had been educated as the destined wife of the emperor
Constans, exalted the dignity of a Barbarian king. Tiranus professed the
Christian religion; he reigned over a nation of Christians; and he was
restrained, by every principle of conscience and interest, from
contributing to the victory, which would consummate the ruin of the
church. The alienated mind of Tiranus was exasperated by the indiscretion
of Julian, who treated the king of Armenia as his slave, and as the enemy
of the gods. The haughty and threatening style of the Imperial mandates
awakened the secret indignation of a prince, who, in the humiliating state
of dependence, was still conscious of his royal descent from the
Arsacides, the lords of the East, and the rivals of the Roman power.
The military dispositions of Julian were skilfully contrived to deceive
the spies and to divert the attention of Sapor. The legions appeared to
direct their march towards Nisibis and the Tigris. On a sudden they
wheeled to the right; traversed the level and naked plain of Carrhæ;
and reached, on the third day, the banks of the Euphrates, where the
strong town of Nicephorium, or Callinicum, had been founded by the
Macedonian kings. From thence the emperor pursued his march, above ninety
miles, along the winding stream of the Euphrates, till, at length, about
one month after his departure from Antioch, he discovered the towers of
Circesium, * the extreme limit of the Roman dominions. The army of Julian,
the most numerous that any of the Cæsars had ever led against
Persia, consisted of sixty-five thousand effective and well-disciplined
soldiers. The veteran bands of cavalry and infantry, of Romans and
Barbarians, had been selected from the different provinces; and a just
preeminence of loyalty and valor was claimed by the hardy Gauls, who
guarded the throne and person of their beloved prince. A formidable body
of Scythian auxiliaries had been transported from another climate, and
almost from another world, to invade a distant country, of whose name and
situation they were ignorant. The love of rapine and war allured to the
Imperial standard several tribes of Saracens, or roving Arabs, whose
service Julian had commanded, while he sternly refused the payment of the
accustomed subsidies. The broad channel of the Euphrates was crowded by a
fleet of eleven hundred ships, destined to attend the motions, and to
satisfy the wants, of the Roman army. The military strength of the fleet
was composed of fifty armed galleys; and these were accompanied by an
equal number of flat-bottomed boats, which might occasionally be connected
into the form of temporary bridges. The rest of the ships, partly
constructed of timber, and partly covered with raw hides, were laden with
an almost inexhaustible supply of arms and engines, of utensils and
provisions. The vigilant humanity of Julian had embarked a very large
magazine of vinegar and biscuit for the use of the soldiers, but he
prohibited the indulgence of wine; and rigorously stopped a long string of
superfluous camels that attempted to follow the rear of the army. The
River Chaboras falls into the Euphrates at Circesium; and as soon as the
trumpet gave the signal of march, the Romans passed the little stream
which separated two mighty and hostile empires. The custom of ancient
discipline required a military oration; and Julian embraced every
opportunity of displaying his eloquence. He animated the impatient and
attentive legions by the example of the inflexible courage and glorious
triumphs of their ancestors. He excited their resentment by a lively
picture of the insolence of the Persians; and he exhorted them to imitate
his firm resolution, either to extirpate that perfidious nation, or to
devote his life in the cause of the republic. The eloquence of Julian was
enforced by a donative of one hundred and thirty pieces of silver to every
soldier; and the bridge of the Chaboras was instantly cut away, to
convince the troops that they must place their hopes of safety in the
success of their arms. Yet the prudence of the emperor induced him to
secure a remote frontier, perpetually exposed to the inroads of the
hostile Arabs. A detachment of four thousand men was left at Circesium,
which completed, to the number of ten thousand, the regular garrison of
that important fortress.
From the moment that the Romans entered the enemy's country, the country
of an active and artful enemy, the order of march was disposed in three
columns. The strength of the infantry, and consequently of the whole army
was placed in the centre, under the peculiar command of their
master-general Victor. On the right, the brave Nevitta led a column of
several legions along the banks of the Euphrates, and almost always in
sight of the fleet. The left flank of the army was protected by the column
of cavalry. Hormisdas and Arinthæus were appointed generals of the
horse; and the singular adventures of Hormisdas are not undeserving of our
notice. He was a Persian prince, of the royal race of the Sassanides, who,
in the troubles of the minority of Sapor, had escaped from prison to the
hospitable court of the great Constantine. Hormisdas at first excited the
compassion, and at length acquired the esteem, of his new masters; his
valor and fidelity raised him to the military honors of the Roman service;
and though a Christian, he might indulge the secret satisfaction of
convincing his ungrateful country, that an oppressed subject may prove the
most dangerous enemy. Such was the disposition of the three principal
columns. The front and flanks of the army were covered by Lucilianus with
a flying detachment of fifteen hundred light-armed soldiers, whose active
vigilance observed the most distant signs, and conveyed the earliest
notice, of any hostile approach. Dagalaiphus, and Secundinus duke of
Osrhoene, conducted the troops of the rear-guard; the baggage securely
proceeded in the intervals of the columns; and the ranks, from a motive
either of use or ostentation, were formed in such open order, that the
whole line of march extended almost ten miles. The ordinary post of Julian
was at the head of the centre column; but as he preferred the duties of a
general to the state of a monarch, he rapidly moved, with a small escort
of light cavalry, to the front, the rear, the flanks, wherever his
presence could animate or protect the march of the Roman army. The country
which they traversed from the Chaboras, to the cultivated lands of
Assyria, may be considered as a part of the desert of Arabia, a dry and
barren waste, which could never be improved by the most powerful arts of
human industry. Julian marched over the same ground which had been trod
above seven hundred years before by the footsteps of the younger Cyrus,
and which is described by one of the companions of his expedition, the
sage and heroic Xenophon. "The country was a plain throughout, as even as
the sea, and full of wormwood; and if any other kind of shrubs or reeds
grew there, they had all an aromatic smell, but no trees could be seen.
Bustards and ostriches, antelopes and wild asses, appeared to be the only
inhabitants of the desert; and the fatigues of the march were alleviated
by the amusements of the chase." The loose sand of the desert was
frequently raised by the wind into clouds of dust; and a great number of
the soldiers of Julian, with their tents, were suddenly thrown to the
ground by the violence of an unexpected hurricane.
The sandy plains of Mesopotamia were abandoned to the antelopes and wild
asses of the desert; but a variety of populous towns and villages were
pleasantly situated on the banks of the Euphrates, and in the islands
which are occasionally formed by that river. The city of Annah, or Anatho,
the actual residence of an Arabian emir, is composed of two long streets,
which enclose, within a natural fortification, a small island in the
midst, and two fruitful spots on either side, of the Euphrates. The
warlike inhabitants of Anatho showed a disposition to stop the march of a
Roman emperor; till they were diverted from such fatal presumption by the
mild exhortations of Prince Hormisdas, and the approaching terrors of the
fleet and army. They implored, and experienced, the clemency of Julian,
who transplanted the people to an advantageous settlement, near Chalcis in
Syria, and admitted Pusæus, the governor, to an honorable rank in
his service and friendship. But the impregnable fortress of Thilutha could
scorn the menace of a siege; and the emperor was obliged to content
himself with an insulting promise, that, when he had subdued the interior
provinces of Persia, Thilutha would no longer refuse to grace the triumph
of the emperor. The inhabitants of the open towns, unable to resist, and
unwilling to yield, fled with precipitation; and their houses, filled with
spoil and provisions, were occupied by the soldiers of Julian, who
massacred, without remorse and without punishment, some defenceless women.
During the march, the Surenas, * or Persian general, and Malek Rodosaces,
the renowned emir of the tribe of Gassan, incessantly hovered round the
army; every straggler was intercepted; every detachment was attacked; and
the valiant Hormisdas escaped with some difficulty from their hands. But
the Barbarians were finally repulsed; the country became every day less
favorable to the operations of cavalry; and when the Romans arrived at
Macepracta, they perceived the ruins of the wall, which had been
constructed by the ancient kings of Assyria, to secure their dominions
from the incursions of the Medes. These preliminaries of the expedition of
Julian appear to have employed about fifteen days; and we may compute near
three hundred miles from the fortress of Circesium to the wall of
Macepracta.
The fertile province of Assyria, which stretched beyond the Tigris, as far
as the mountains of Media, extended about four hundred miles from the
ancient wall of Macepracta, to the territory of Basra, where the united
streams of the Euphrates and Tigris discharge themselves into the Persian
Gulf. The whole country might have claimed the peculiar name of
Mesopotamia; as the two rivers, which are never more distant than fifty,
approach, between Bagdad and Babylon, within twenty-five miles, of each
other. A multitude of artificial canals, dug without much labor in a soft
and yielding soil connected the rivers, and intersected the plain of
Assyria. The uses of these artificial canals were various and important.
They served to discharge the superfluous waters from one river into the
other, at the season of their respective inundations. Subdividing
themselves into smaller and smaller branches, they refreshed the dry
lands, and supplied the deficiency of rain. They facilitated the
intercourse of peace and commerce; and, as the dams could be speedily
broke down, they armed the despair of the Assyrians with the means of
opposing a sudden deluge to the progress of an invading army. To the soil
and climate of Assyria, nature had denied some of her choicest gifts, the
vine, the olive, and the fig-tree; * but the food which supports the life
of man, and particularly wheat and barley, were produced with
inexhaustible fertility; and the husbandman, who committed his seed to the
earth, was frequently rewarded with an increase of two, or even of three,
hundred. The face of the country was interspersed with groves of
innumerable palm-trees; and the diligent natives celebrated, either in
verse or prose, the three hundred and sixty uses to which the trunk, the
branches, the leaves, the juice, and the fruit, were skilfully applied.
Several manufactures, especially those of leather and linen, employed the
industry of a numerous people, and afforded valuable materials for foreign
trade; which appears, however, to have been conducted by the hands of
strangers. Babylon had been converted into a royal park; but near the
ruins of the ancient capital, new cities had successively arisen, and the
populousness of the country was displayed in the multitude of towns and
villages, which were built of bricks dried in the sun, and strongly
cemented with bitumen; the natural and peculiar production of the
Babylonian soil. While the successors of Cyrus reigned over Asia, the
province of Syria alone maintained, during a third part of the year, the
luxurious plenty of the table and household of the Great King. Four
considerable villages were assigned for the subsistence of his Indian
dogs; eight hundred stallions, and sixteen thousand mares, were constantly
kept, at the expense of the country, for the royal stables; and as the
daily tribute, which was paid to the satrap, amounted to one English
bushel of silver, we may compute the annual revenue of Assyria at more
than twelve hundred thousand pounds sterling.
The fields of Assyria were devoted by Julian to the calamities of war; and
the philosopher retaliated on a guiltless people the acts of rapine and
cruelty which had been committed by their haughty master in the Roman
provinces. The trembling Assyrians summoned the rivers to their
assistance; and completed, with their own hands, the ruin of their
country. The roads were rendered impracticable; a flood of waters was
poured into the camp; and, during several days, the troops of Julian were
obliged to contend with the most discouraging hardships. But every
obstacle was surmounted by the perseverance of the legionaries, who were
inured to toil as well as to danger, and who felt themselves animated by
the spirit of their leader. The damage was gradually repaired; the waters
were restored to their proper channels; whole groves of palm-trees were
cut down, and placed along the broken parts of the road; and the army
passed over the broad and deeper canals, on bridges of floating rafts,
which were supported by the help of bladders. Two cities of Assyria
presumed to resist the arms of a Roman emperor: and they both paid the
severe penalty of their rashness. At the distance of fifty miles from the
royal residence of Ctesiphon, Perisabor, * or Anbar, held the second rank
in the province; a city, large, populous, and well fortified, surrounded
with a double wall, almost encompassed by a branch of the Euphrates, and
defended by the valor of a numerous garrison. The exhortations of
Hormisdas were repulsed with contempt; and the ears of the Persian prince
were wounded by a just reproach, that, unmindful of his royal birth, he
conducted an army of strangers against his king and country. The Assyrians
maintained their loyalty by a skilful, as well as vigorous, defence; till
the lucky stroke of a battering-ram, having opened a large breach, by
shattering one of the angles of the wall, they hastily retired into the
fortifications of the interior citadel. The soldiers of Julian rushed
impetuously into the town, and after the full gratification of every
military appetite, Perisabor was reduced to ashes; and the engines which
assaulted the citadel were planted on the ruins of the smoking houses. The
contest was continued by an incessant and mutual discharge of missile
weapons; and the superiority which the Romans might derive from the
mechanical powers of their balistæ and catapultæ was
counterbalanced by the advantage of the ground on the side of the
besieged. But as soon as an Helepolis had been
constructed, which could engage on equal terms with the loftiest ramparts,
the tremendous aspect of a moving turret, that would leave no hope of
resistance or mercy, terrified the defenders of the citadel into an humble
submission; and the place was surrendered only two days after Julian first
appeared under the walls of Perisabor. Two thousand five hundred persons,
of both sexes, the feeble remnant of a flourishing people, were permitted
to retire; the plentiful magazines of corn, of arms, and of splendid
furniture, were partly distributed among the troops, and partly reserved
for the public service; the useless stores were destroyed by fire or
thrown into the stream of the Euphrates; and the fate of Amida was
revenged by the total ruin of Perisabor.
The city or rather fortress, of Maogamalcha, which was defended by sixteen
large towers, a deep ditch, and two strong and solid walls of brick and
bitumen, appears to have been constructed at the distance of eleven miles,
as the safeguard of the capital of Persia. The emperor, apprehensive of
leaving such an important fortress in his rear, immediately formed the
siege of Maogamalcha; and the Roman army was distributed, for that
purpose, into three divisions. Victor, at the head of the cavalry, and of
a detachment of heavy-armed foot, was ordered to clear the country, as far
as the banks of the Tigris, and the suburbs of Ctesiphon. The conduct of
the attack was assumed by Julian himself, who seemed to place his whole
dependence in the military engines which he erected against the walls;
while he secretly contrived a more efficacious method of introducing his
troops into the heart of the city. Under the direction of Nevitta and
Dagalaiphus, the trenches were opened at a considerable distance, and
gradually prolonged as far as the edge of the ditch. The ditch was
speedily filled with earth; and, by the incessant labor of the troops, a
mine was carried under the foundations of the walls, and sustained, at
sufficient intervals, by props of timber. Three chosen cohorts, advancing
in a single file, silently explored the dark and dangerous passage; till
their intrepid leader whispered back the intelligence, that he was ready
to issue from his confinement into the streets of the hostile city. Julian
checked their ardor, that he might insure their success; and immediately
diverted the attention of the garrison, by the tumult and clamor of a
general assault. The Persians, who, from their walls, contemptuously
beheld the progress of an impotent attack, celebrated with songs of
triumph the glory of Sapor; and ventured to assure the emperor, that he
might ascend the starry mansion of Ormusd, before he could hope to take
the impregnable city of Maogamalcha. The city was already taken. History
has recorded the name of a private soldier the first who ascended from the
mine into a deserted tower. The passage was widened by his companions, who
pressed forwards with impatient valor. Fifteen hundred enemies were
already in the midst of the city. The astonished garrison abandoned the
walls, and their only hope of safety; the gates were instantly burst open;
and the revenge of the soldier, unless it were suspended by lust or
avarice, was satiated by an undistinguishing massacre. The governor, who
had yielded on a promise of mercy, was burnt alive, a few days afterwards,
on a charge of having uttered some disrespectful words against the honor
of Prince Hormisdas. * The fortifications were razed to the ground; and
not a vestige was left, that the city of Maogamalcha had ever existed. The
neighborhood of the capital of Persia was adorned with three stately
palaces, laboriously enriched with every production that could gratify the
luxury and pride of an Eastern monarch. The pleasant situation of the
gardens along the banks of the Tigris, was improved, according to the
Persian taste, by the symmetry of flowers, fountains, and shady walks: and
spacious parks were enclosed for the reception of the bears, lions, and
wild boars, which were maintained at a considerable expense for the
pleasure of the royal chase. The park walls were broken down, the savage
game was abandoned to the darts of the soldiers, and the palaces of Sapor
were reduced to ashes, by the command of the Roman emperor. Julian, on
this occasion, showed himself ignorant, or careless, of the laws of
civility, which the prudence and refinement of polished ages have
established between hostile princes. Yet these wanton ravages need not
excite in our breasts any vehement emotions of pity or resentment. A
simple, naked statue, finished by the hand of a Grecian artist, is of more
genuine value than all these rude and costly monuments of Barbaric labor;
and, if we are more deeply affected by the ruin of a palace than by the
conflagration of a cottage, our humanity must have formed a very erroneous
estimate of the miseries of human life.
Julian was an object of hatred and terror to the Persian and the painters
of that nation represented the invader of their country under the emblem
of a furious lion, who vomited from his mouth a consuming fire. To his
friends and soldiers the philosophic hero appeared in a more amiable
light; and his virtues were never more conspicuously displayed, than in
the last and most active period of his life. He practised, without effort,
and almost without merit, the habitual qualities of temperance and
sobriety. According to the dictates of that artificial wisdom, which
assumes an absolute dominion over the mind and body, he sternly refused
himself the indulgence of the most natural appetites. In the warm climate
of Assyria, which solicited a luxurious people to the gratification of
every sensual desire, a youthful conqueror preserved his chastity pure and
inviolate; nor was Julian ever tempted, even by a motive of curiosity, to
visit his female captives of exquisite beauty, who, instead of resisting
his power, would have disputed with each other the honor of his embraces.
With the same firmness that he resisted the allurements of love, he
sustained the hardships of war. When the Romans marched through the flat
and flooded country, their sovereign, on foot, at the head of his legions,
shared their fatigues and animated their diligence. In every useful labor,
the hand of Julian was prompt and strenuous; and the Imperial purple was
wet and dirty as the coarse garment of the meanest soldier. The two sieges
allowed him some remarkable opportunities of signalizing his personal
valor, which, in the improved state of the military art, can seldom be
exerted by a prudent general. The emperor stood before
the citadel of Perisabor, insensible of his extreme danger, and encouraged
his troops to burst open the gates of iron, till he was almost overwhelmed
under a cloud of missile weapons and huge stones, that were directed
against his person. As he examined the exterior fortifications of
Maogamalcha, two Persians, devoting themselves for their country, suddenly
rushed upon him with drawn cimeters: the emperor dexterously received
their blows on his uplifted shield; and, with a steady and well-aimed
thrust, laid one of his adversaries dead at his feet. The esteem of a
prince who possesses the virtues which he approves, is the noblest
recompense of a deserving subject; and the authority which Julian derived
from his personal merit, enabled him to revive and enforce the rigor of
ancient discipline. He punished with death or ignominy the misbehavior of
three troops of horse, who, in a skirmish with the Surenas, had lost their
honor and one of their standards: and he distinguished with obsidional
crowns the valor of the foremost soldiers, who had ascended into the city
of Maogamalcha. After the siege of Perisabor, the firmness of the emperor
was exercised by the insolent avarice of the army, who loudly complained,
that their services were rewarded by a trifling donative of one hundred
pieces of silver. His just indignation was expressed in the grave and
manly language of a Roman. "Riches are the object of your desires; those
riches are in the hands of the Persians; and the spoils of this fruitful
country are proposed as the prize of your valor and discipline. Believe
me," added Julian, "the Roman republic, which formerly possessed such
immense treasures, is now reduced to want and wretchedness once our
princes have been persuaded, by weak and interested ministers, to purchase
with gold the tranquillity of the Barbarians. The revenue is exhausted;
the cities are ruined; the provinces are dispeopled. For myself, the only
inheritance that I have received from my royal ancestors is a soul
incapable of fear; and as long as I am convinced that every real advantage
is seated in the mind, I shall not blush to acknowledge an honorable
poverty, which, in the days of ancient virtue, was considered as the glory
of Fabricius. That glory, and that virtue, may be your own, if you will
listen to the voice of Heaven and of your leader. But if you will rashly
persist, if you are determined to renew the shameful and mischievous
examples of old seditions, proceed. As it becomes an emperor who has
filled the first rank among men, I am prepared to die, standing; and to
despise a precarious life, which, every hour, may depend on an accidental
fever. If I have been found unworthy of the command, there are now among
you, (I speak it with pride and pleasure,) there are many chiefs whose
merit and experience are equal to the conduct of the most important war.
Such has been the temper of my reign, that I can retire, without regret,
and without apprehension, to the obscurity of a private station." The
modest resolution of Julian was answered by the unanimous applause and
cheerful obedience of the Romans, who declared their confidence of
victory, while they fought under the banners of their heroic prince. Their
courage was kindled by his frequent and familiar asseverations, (for such
wishes were the oaths of Julian,) "So may I reduce the Persians under the
yoke!" "Thus may I restore the strength and splendor of the republic!" The
love of fame was the ardent passion of his soul: but it was not before he
trampled on the ruins of Maogamalcha, that he allowed himself to say, "We
have now provided some materials for the sophist of Antioch."
The successful valor of Julian had triumphed over all the obstacles that
opposed his march to the gates of Ctesiphon. But the reduction, or even
the siege, of the capital of Persia, was still at a distance: nor can the
military conduct of the emperor be clearly apprehended, without a
knowledge of the country which was the theatre of his bold and skilful
operations. Twenty miles to the south of Bagdad, and on the eastern bank
of the Tigris, the curiosity of travellers has observed some ruins of the
palaces of Ctesiphon, which, in the time of Julian, was a great and
populous city. The name and glory of the adjacent Seleucia were forever
extinguished; and the only remaining quarter of that Greek colony had
resumed, with the Assyrian language and manners, the primitive appellation
of Coche. Coche was situate on the western side of the Tigris; but it was
naturally considered as a suburb of Ctesiphon, with which we may suppose
it to have been connected by a permanent bridge of boats. The united parts
contribute to form the common epithet of Al Modain, the cities, which the
Orientals have bestowed on the winter residence of the Sassinades; and the
whole circumference of the Persian capital was strongly fortified by the
waters of the river, by lofty walls, and by impracticable morasses. Near
the ruins of Seleucia, the camp of Julian was fixed, and secured, by a
ditch and rampart, against the sallies of the numerous and enterprising
garrison of Coche. In this fruitful and pleasant country, the Romans were
plentifully supplied with water and forage: and several forts, which might
have embarrassed the motions of the army, submitted, after some
resistance, to the efforts of their valor. The fleet passed from the
Euphrates into an artificial derivation of that river, which pours a
copious and navigable stream into the Tigris, at a small distance below
the great city. If they had followed this royal canal, which bore the name
of Nahar-Malcha, the intermediate situation of Coche would have separated
the fleet and army of Julian; and the rash attempt of steering against the
current of the Tigris, and forcing their way through the midst of a
hostile capital, must have been attended with the total destruction of the
Roman navy. The prudence of the emperor foresaw the danger, and provided
the remedy. As he had minutely studied the operations of Trajan in the
same country, he soon recollected that his warlike predecessor had dug a
new and navigable canal, which, leaving Coche on the right hand, conveyed
the waters of the Nahar-Malcha into the river Tigris, at some distance
above the cities. From the information of the
peasants, Julian ascertained the vestiges of this ancient work, which were
almost obliterated by design or accident. By the indefatigable labor of
the soldiers, a broad and deep channel was speedily prepared for the
reception of the Euphrates. A strong dike was constructed to interrupt the
ordinary current of the Nahar-Malcha: a flood of waters rushed impetuously
into their new bed; and the Roman fleet, steering their triumphant course
into the Tigris, derided the vain and ineffectual barriers which the
Persians of Ctesiphon had erected to oppose their passage.
As it became necessary to transport the Roman army over the Tigris,
another labor presented itself, of less toil, but of more danger, than the
preceding expedition. The stream was broad and rapid; the ascent steep and
difficult; and the intrenchments which had been formed on the ridge of the
opposite bank, were lined with a numerous army of heavy cuirassiers,
dexterous archers, and huge elephants; who (according to the extravagant
hyperbole of Libanius) could trample with the same ease a field of corn,
or a legion of Romans. In the presence of such an enemy, the construction
of a bridge was impracticable; and the intrepid prince, who instantly
seized the only possible expedient, concealed his design, till the moment
of execution, from the knowledge of the Barbarians, of his own troops, and
even of his generals themselves. Under the specious pretence of examining
the state of the magazines, fourscore vessels * were gradually unladen;
and a select detachment, apparently destined for some secret expedition,
was ordered to stand to their arms on the first signal. Julian disguised
the silent anxiety of his own mind with smiles of confidence and joy; and
amused the hostile nations with the spectacle of military games, which he
insultingly celebrated under the walls of Coche. The day was consecrated
to pleasure; but, as soon as the hour of supper was passed, the emperor
summoned the generals to his tent, and acquainted them that he had fixed
that night for the passage of the Tigris. They stood in silent and
respectful astonishment; but, when the venerable Sallust assumed the
privilege of his age and experience, the rest of the chiefs supported with
freedom the weight of his prudent remonstrances. Julian contented himself
with observing, that conquest and safety depended on the attempt; that
instead of diminishing, the number of their enemies would be increased, by
successive reenforcements; and that a longer delay would neither contract
the breadth of the stream, nor level the height of the bank. The signal
was instantly given, and obeyed; the most impatient of the legionaries
leaped into five vessels that lay nearest to the bank; and as they plied
their oars with intrepid diligence, they were lost, after a few moments,
in the darkness of the night. A flame arose on the opposite side; and
Julian, who too clearly understood that his foremost vessels, in
attempting to land, had been fired by the enemy, dexterously converted
their extreme danger into a presage of victory. "Our fellow-soldiers," he
eagerly exclaimed, "are already masters of the bank; see—they make
the appointed signal; let us hasten to emulate and assist their courage."
The united and rapid motion of a great fleet broke the violence of the
current, and they reached the eastern shore of the Tigris with sufficient
speed to extinguish the flames, and rescue their adventurous companions.
The difficulties of a steep and lofty ascent were increased by the weight
of armor, and the darkness of the night. A shower of stones, darts, and
fire, was incessantly discharged on the heads of the assailants; who,
after an arduous struggle, climbed the bank and stood victorious upon the
rampart. As soon as they possessed a more equal field, Julian, who, with
his light infantry, had led the attack, darted through the ranks a skilful
and experienced eye: his bravest soldiers, according to the precepts of
Homer, were distributed in the front and rear: and all the trumpets of the
Imperial army sounded to battle. The Romans, after sending up a military
shout, advanced in measured steps to the animating notes of martial music;
launched their formidable javelins; and rushed forwards with drawn swords,
to deprive the Barbarians, by a closer onset, of the advantage of their
missile weapons. The whole engagement lasted above twelve hours; till the
gradual retreat of the Persians was changed into a disorderly flight, of
which the shameful example was given by the principal leader, and the
Surenas himself. They were pursued to the gates of Ctesiphon; and the
conquerors might have entered the dismayed city, if their general, Victor,
who was dangerously wounded with an arrow, had not conjured them to desist
from a rash attempt, which must be fatal, if it were not successful. On
their side, the Romans acknowledged the loss of
only seventy-five men; while they affirmed, that the Barbarians had left
on the field of battle two thousand five hundred, or even six thousand, of
their bravest soldiers. The spoil was such as might be expected from the
riches and luxury of an Oriental camp; large quantities of silver and
gold, splendid arms and trappings, and beds and tables of massy silver. *
The victorious emperor distributed, as the rewards of valor, some
honorable gifts, civic, and mural, and naval crowns; which he, and perhaps
he alone, esteemed more precious than the wealth of Asia. A solemn
sacrifice was offered to the god of war, but the appearances of the
victims threatened the most inauspicious events; and Julian soon
discovered, by less ambiguous signs, that he had now reached the term of
his prosperity.
On the second day after the battle, the domestic guards, the Jovians and
Herculians, and the remaining troops, which composed near two thirds of
the whole army, were securely wafted over the Tigris. While the Persians
beheld from the walls of Ctesiphon the desolation of the adjacent country,
Julian cast many an anxious look towards the North, in full expectation,
that as he himself had victoriously penetrated to the capital of Sapor,
the march and junction of his lieutenants, Sebastian and Procopius, would
be executed with the same courage and diligence. His expectations were
disappointed by the treachery of the Armenian king, who permitted, and
most probably directed, the desertion of his auxiliary troops from the
camp of the Romans; and by the dissensions of the two generals, who were
incapable of forming or executing any plan for the public service. When
the emperor had relinquished the hope of this important reenforcement, he
condescended to hold a council of war, and approved, after a full debate,
the sentiment of those generals, who dissuaded the siege of Ctesiphon, as
a fruitless and pernicious undertaking. It is not easy for us to conceive,
by what arts of fortification a city thrice besieged and taken by the
predecessors of Julian could be rendered impregnable against an army of
sixty thousand Romans, commanded by a brave and experienced general, and
abundantly supplied with ships, provisions, battering engines, and
military stores. But we may rest assured, from the love of glory, and
contempt of danger, which formed the character of Julian, that he was not
discouraged by any trivial or imaginary obstacles. At the very time when
he declined the siege of Ctesiphon, he rejected, with obstinacy and
disdain, the most flattering offers of a negotiation of peace. Sapor, who
had been so long accustomed to the tardy ostentation of Constantius, was
surprised by the intrepid diligence of his successor. As far as the
confines of India and Scythia, the satraps of the distant provinces were
ordered to assemble their troops, and to march, without delay, to the
assistance of their monarch. But their preparations were dilatory, their
motions slow; and before Sapor could lead an army into the field, he
received the melancholy intelligence of the devastation of Assyria, the
ruin of his palaces, and the slaughter of his bravest troops, who defended
the passage of the Tigris. The pride of royalty was humbled in the dust;
he took his repasts on the ground; and the disorder of his hair expressed
the grief and anxiety of his mind. Perhaps he would not have refused to
purchase, with one half of his kingdom, the safety of the remainder; and
he would have gladly subscribed himself, in a treaty of peace, the
faithful and dependent ally of the Roman conqueror. Under the pretence of
private business, a minister of rank and confidence was secretly
despatched to embrace the knees of Hormisdas, and to request, in the
language of a suppliant, that he might be introduced into the presence of
the emperor. The Sassanian prince, whether he listened to the voice of
pride or humanity, whether he consulted the sentiments of his birth, or
the duties of his situation, was equally inclined to promote a salutary
measure, which would terminate the calamities of Persia, and secure the
triumph of Rome. He was astonished by the inflexible firmness of a hero,
who remembered, most unfortunately for himself and for his country, that
Alexander had uniformly rejected the propositions of Darius. But as Julian
was sensible, that the hope of a safe and honorable peace might cool the
ardor of his troops, he earnestly requested that Hormisdas would privately
dismiss the minister of Sapor, and conceal this dangerous temptation from
the knowledge of the camp.
The honor, as well as interest, of Julian, forbade him to consume his time
under the impregnable walls of Ctesiphon and as often as he defied the
Barbarians, who defended the city, to meet him on the open plain, they
prudently replied, that if he desired to exercise his valor, he might seek
the army of the Great King. He felt the insult, and he accepted the
advice. Instead of confining his servile march to the banks of the
Euphrates and Tigris, he resolved to imitate the adventurous spirit of
Alexander, and boldly to advance into the inland provinces, till he forced
his rival to contend with him, perhaps in the plains of Arbela, for the
empire of Asia. The magnanimity of Julian was applauded and betrayed, by
the arts of a noble Persian, who, in the cause of his country, had
generously submitted to act a part full of danger, of falsehood, and of
shame. With a train of faithful followers, he deserted to the Imperial
camp; exposed, in a specious tale, the injuries which he had sustained;
exaggerated the cruelty of Sapor, the discontent of the people, and the
weakness of the monarchy; and confidently offered himself as the hostage
and guide of the Roman march. The most rational grounds of suspicion were
urged, without effect, by the wisdom and experience of Hormisdas; and the
credulous Julian, receiving the traitor into his bosom, was persuaded to
issue a hasty order, which, in the opinion of mankind, appeared to arraign
his prudence, and to endanger his safety. He destroyed, in a single hour,
the whole navy, which had been transported above five hundred miles, at so
great an expense of toil, of treasure, and of blood. Twelve, or, at the
most, twenty-two small vessels were saved, to accompany, on carriages, the
march of the army, and to form occasional bridges for the passage of the
rivers. A supply of twenty days' provisions was reserved for the use of
the soldiers; and the rest of the magazines, with a fleet of eleven
hundred vessels, which rode at anchor in the Tigris, were abandoned to the
flames, by the absolute command of the emperor. The Christian bishops,
Gregory and Augustin, insult the madness of the Apostate, who executed,
with his own hands, the sentence of divine justice. Their authority, of
less weight, perhaps, in a military question, is confirmed by the cool
judgment of an experienced soldier, who was himself spectator of the
conflagration, and who could not disapprove the reluctant murmurs of the
troops. Yet there are not wanting some specious, and perhaps solid,
reasons, which might justify the resolution of Julian. The navigation of
the Euphrates never ascended above Babylon, nor that of the Tigris above
Opis. The distance of the last-mentioned city from the Roman camp was not
very considerable: and Julian must soon have renounced the vain and
impracticable attempt of forcing upwards a great fleet against the stream
of a rapid river, which in several places was embarrassed by natural or
artificial cataracts. The power of sails and oars was insufficient; it
became necessary to tow the ships against the current of the river; the
strength of twenty thousand soldiers was exhausted in this tedious and
servile labor, and if the Romans continued to march along the banks of the
Tigris, they could only expect to return home without achieving any
enterprise worthy of the genius or fortune of their leader. If, on the
contrary, it was advisable to advance into the inland country, the
destruction of the fleet and magazines was the only measure which could
save that valuable prize from the hands of the numerous and active troops
which might suddenly be poured from the gates of Ctesiphon. Had the arms
of Julian been victorious, we should now admire the conduct, as well as
the courage, of a hero, who, by depriving his soldiers of the hopes of a
retreat, left them only the alternative of death or conquest.
The cumbersome train of artillery and wagons, which retards the operations
of a modern army, were in a great measure unknown in the camps of the
Romans. Yet, in every age, the subsistence of sixty thousand men must have
been one of the most important cares of a prudent general; and that
subsistence could only be drawn from his own or from the enemy's country.
Had it been possible for Julian to maintain a bridge of communication on
the Tigris, and to preserve the conquered places of Assyria, a desolated
province could not afford any large or regular supplies, in a season of
the year when the lands were covered by the inundation of the Euphrates,
and the unwholesome air was darkened with swarms of innumerable insects.
The appearance of the hostile country was far more inviting. The extensive
region that lies between the River Tigris and the mountains of Media, was
filled with villages and towns; and the fertile soil, for the most part,
was in a very improved state of cultivation. Julian might expect, that a
conqueror, who possessed the two forcible instruments of persuasion, steel
and gold, would easily procure a plentiful subsistence from the fears or
avarice of the natives. But, on the approach of the Romans, the rich and
smiling prospect was instantly blasted. Wherever they moved, the
inhabitants deserted the open villages, and took shelter in the fortified
towns; the cattle was driven away; the grass and ripe corn were consumed
with fire; and, as soon as the flames had subsided which interrupted the
march of Julian, he beheld the melancholy face of a smoking and naked
desert. This desperate but effectual method of defence can only be
executed by the enthusiasm of a people who prefer their independence to
their property; or by the rigor of an arbitrary government, which consults
the public safety without submitting to their inclinations the liberty of
choice. On the present occasion the zeal and obedience of the Persians
seconded the commands of Sapor; and the emperor was soon reduced to the
scanty stock of provisions, which continually wasted in his hands. Before
they were entirely consumed, he might still have reached the wealthy and
unwarlike cities of Ecbatana or Susa, by the effort of a rapid and
well-directed march; but he was deprived of this last resource by his
ignorance of the roads, and by the perfidy of his guides. The Romans
wandered several days in the country to the eastward of Bagdad; the
Persian deserter, who had artfully led them into the snare, escaped from
their resentment; and his followers, as soon as they were put to the
torture, confessed the secret of the conspiracy. The visionary conquests
of Hyrcania and India, which had so long amused, now tormented, the mind
of Julian. Conscious that his own imprudence was the cause of the public
distress, he anxiously balanced the hopes of safety or success, without
obtaining a satisfactory answer, either from gods or men. At length, as
the only practicable measure, he embraced the resolution of directing his
steps towards the banks of the Tigris, with the design of saving the army
by a hasty march to the confines of Corduene; a fertile and friendly
province, which acknowledged the sovereignty of Rome. The desponding
troops obeyed the signal of the retreat, only seventy days after they had
passed the Chaboras, with the sanguine expectation of subverting the
throne of Persia.
As long as the Romans seemed to advance into the country, their march was
observed and insulted from a distance, by several bodies of Persian
cavalry; who, showing themselves sometimes in loose, and sometimes in
close order, faintly skirmished with the advanced guards. These
detachments were, however, supported by a much greater force; and the
heads of the columns were no sooner pointed towards the Tigris than a
cloud of dust arose on the plain. The Romans, who now aspired only to the
permission of a safe and speedy retreat, endeavored to persuade
themselves, that this formidable appearance was occasioned by a troop of
wild asses, or perhaps by the approach of some friendly Arabs. They
halted, pitched their tents, fortified their camp, passed the whole night
in continual alarms; and discovered at the dawn of day, that they were
surrounded by an army of Persians. This army, which might be considered
only as the van of the Barbarians, was soon followed by the main body of
cuirassiers, archers, and elephants, commanded by Meranes, a general of
rank and reputation. He was accompanied by two of the king's sons, and
many of the principal satraps; and fame and expectation exaggerated the
strength of the remaining powers, which slowly advanced under the conduct
of Sapor himself. As the Romans continued their march, their long array,
which was forced to bend or divide, according to the varieties of the
ground, afforded frequent and favorable opportunities to their vigilant
enemies. The Persians repeatedly charged with fury; they were repeatedly
repulsed with firmness; and the action at Maronga, which almost deserved
the name of a battle, was marked by a considerable loss of satraps and
elephants, perhaps of equal value in the eyes of their monarch. These
splendid advantages were not obtained without an adequate slaughter on the
side of the Romans: several officers of distinction were either killed or
wounded; and the emperor himself, who, on all occasions of danger,
inspired and guided the valor of his troops, was obliged to expose his
person, and exert his abilities. The weight of offensive and defensive
arms, which still constituted the strength and safety of the Romans,
disabled them from making any long or effectual pursuit; and as the
horsemen of the East were trained to dart their javelins, and shoot their
arrows, at full speed, and in every possible direction, the cavalry of
Persia was never more formidable than in the moment of a rapid and
disorderly flight. But the most certain and irreparable loss of the Romans
was that of time. The hardy veterans, accustomed to the cold climate of
Gaul and Germany, fainted under the sultry heat of an Assyrian summer;
their vigor was exhausted by the incessant repetition of march and combat;
and the progress of the army was suspended by the precautions of a slow
and dangerous retreat, in the presence of an active enemy. Every day,
every hour, as the supply diminished, the value and price of subsistence
increased in the Roman camp. Julian, who always contented himself with
such food as a hungry soldier would have disdained, distributed, for the
use of the troops, the provisions of the Imperial household, and whatever
could be spared, from the sumpter-horses, of the tribunes and generals.
But this feeble relief served only to aggravate the sense of the public
distress; and the Romans began to entertain the most gloomy apprehensions
that, before they could reach the frontiers of the empire, they should all
perish, either by famine, or by the sword of the Barbarians.
While Julian struggled with the almost insuperable difficulties of his
situation, the silent hours of the night were still devoted to study and
contemplation. Whenever he closed his eyes in short and interrupted
slumbers, his mind was agitated with painful anxiety; nor can it be
thought surprising, that the Genius of the empire should once more appear
before him, covering with a funeral veil his head, and his horn of
abundance, and slowly retiring from the Imperial tent. The monarch started
from his couch, and stepping forth to refresh his wearied spirits with the
coolness of the midnight air, he beheld a fiery meteor, which shot athwart
the sky, and suddenly vanished. Julian was convinced that he had seen the
menacing countenance of the god of war; the council which he summoned, of
Tuscan Haruspices, unanimously pronounced that he should abstain from
action; but on this occasion, necessity and reason were more prevalent
than superstition; and the trumpets sounded at the break of day. The army
marched through a hilly country; and the hills had been secretly occupied
by the Persians. Julian led the van with the skill and attention of a
consummate general; he was alarmed by the intelligence that his rear was
suddenly attacked. The heat of the weather had tempted him to lay aside
his cuirass; but he snatched a shield from one of his attendants, and
hastened, with a sufficient reenforcement, to the relief of the
rear-guard. A similar danger recalled the intrepid prince to the defence
of the front; and, as he galloped through the columns, the centre of the
left was attacked, and almost overpowered by the furious charge of the
Persian cavalry and elephants. This huge body was soon defeated, by the
well-timed evolution of the light infantry, who aimed their weapons, with
dexterity and effect, against the backs of the horsemen, and the legs of
the elephants. The Barbarians fled; and Julian, who was foremost in every
danger, animated the pursuit with his voice and gestures. His trembling
guards, scattered and oppressed by the disorderly throng of friends and
enemies, reminded their fearless sovereign that he was without armor; and
conjured him to decline the fall of the impending ruin. As they exclaimed,
a cloud of darts and arrows was discharged from the flying squadrons; and
a javelin, after razing the skin of his arm, transpierced the ribs, and
fixed in the inferior part of the liver. Julian attempted to draw the
deadly weapon from his side; but his fingers were cut by the sharpness of
the steel, and he fell senseless from his horse. His guards flew to his
relief; and the wounded emperor was gently raised from the ground, and
conveyed out of the tumult of the battle into an adjacent tent. The report
of the melancholy event passed from rank to rank; but the grief of the
Romans inspired them with invincible valor, and the desire of revenge. The
bloody and obstinate conflict was maintained by the two armies, till they
were separated by the total darkness of the night. The Persians derived
some honor from the advantage which they obtained against the left wing,
where Anatolius, master of the offices, was slain, and the præfect
Sallust very narrowly escaped. But the event of the day was adverse to the
Barbarians. They abandoned the field; their two generals, Meranes and
Nohordates, fifty nobles or satraps, and a multitude of their bravest
soldiers; and the success of the Romans, if Julian had survived, might
have been improved into a decisive and useful victory.
The first words that Julian uttered, after his recovery from the fainting
fit into which he had been thrown by loss of blood, were expressive of his
martial spirit. He called for his horse and arms, and was impatient to
rush into the battle. His remaining strength was exhausted by the painful
effort; and the surgeons, who examined his wound, discovered the symptoms
of approaching death. He employed the awful moments with the firm temper
of a hero and a sage; the philosophers who had accompanied him in this
fatal expedition, compared the tent of Julian with the prison of Socrates;
and the spectators, whom duty, or friendship, or curiosity, had assembled
round his couch, listened with respectful grief to the funeral oration of
their dying emperor. "Friends and fellow-soldiers, the seasonable period
of my departure is now arrived, and I discharge, with the cheerfulness of
a ready debtor, the demands of nature. I have learned from philosophy, how
much the soul is more excellent than the body; and that the separation of
the nobler substance should be the subject of joy, rather than of
affliction. I have learned from religion, that an early death has often
been the reward of piety; and I accept, as a favor of the gods, the mortal
stroke that secures me from the danger of disgracing a character, which
has hitherto been supported by virtue and fortitude. I die without
remorse, as I have lived without guilt. I am pleased to reflect on the
innocence of my private life; and I can affirm with confidence, that the
supreme authority, that emanation of the Divine Power, has been preserved
in my hands pure and immaculate. Detesting the corrupt and destructive
maxims of despotism, I have considered the happiness of the people as the
end of government. Submitting my actions to the laws of prudence, of
justice, and of moderation, I have trusted the event to the care of
Providence. Peace was the object of my counsels, as long as peace was
consistent with the public welfare; but when the imperious voice of my
country summoned me to arms, I exposed my person to the dangers of war,
with the clear foreknowledge (which I had acquired from the art of
divination) that I was destined to fall by the sword. I now offer my
tribute of gratitude to the Eternal Being, who has not suffered me to
perish by the cruelty of a tyrant, by the secret dagger of conspiracy, or
by the slow tortures of lingering disease. He has given me, in the midst
of an honorable career, a splendid and glorious departure from this world;
and I hold it equally absurd, equally base, to solicit, or to decline, the
stroke of fate. This much I have attempted to say; but my strength fails
me, and I feel the approach of death. I shall cautiously refrain from any
word that may tend to influence your suffrages in the election of an
emperor. My choice might be imprudent or injudicious; and if it should not
be ratified by the consent of the army, it might be fatal to the person
whom I should recommend. I shall only, as a good citizen, express my
hopes, that the Romans may be blessed with the government of a virtuous
sovereign." After this discourse, which Julian pronounced in a firm and
gentle tone of voice, he distributed, by a military testament, the remains
of his private fortune; and making some inquiry why Anatolius was not
present, he understood, from the answer of Sallust, that Anatolius was
killed; and bewailed, with amiable inconsistency, the loss of his friend.
At the same time he reproved the immoderate grief of the spectators; and
conjured them not to disgrace, by unmanly tears, the fate of a prince, who
in a few moments would be united with heaven, and with the stars. The
spectators were silent; and Julian entered into a metaphysical argument
with the philosophers Priscus and Maximus, on the nature of the soul. The
efforts which he made, of mind as well as body, most probably hastened his
death. His wound began to bleed with fresh violence; his respiration was
embarrassed by the swelling of the veins; he called for a draught of cold
water, and, as soon as he had drank it, expired without pain, about the
hour of midnight. Such was the end of that extraordinary man, in the
thirty-second year of his age, after a reign of one year and about eight
months, from the death of Constantius. In his last moments he displayed,
perhaps with some ostentation, the love of virtue and of fame, which had
been the ruling passions of his life.
The triumph of Christianity, and the calamities of the empire, may, in
some measure, be ascribed to Julian himself, who had neglected to secure
the future execution of his designs, by the timely and judicious
nomination of an associate and successor. But the royal race of
Constantius Chlorus was reduced to his own person; and if he entertained
any serious thoughts of investing with the purple the most worthy among
the Romans, he was diverted from his resolution by the difficulty of the
choice, the jealousy of power, the fear of ingratitude, and the natural
presumption of health, of youth, and of prosperity. His unexpected death
left the empire without a master, and without an heir, in a state of
perplexity and danger, which, in the space of fourscore years, had never
been experienced, since the election of Diocletian. In a government which
had almost forgotten the distinction of pure and noble blood, the
superiority of birth was of little moment; the claims of official rank
were accidental and precarious; and the candidates, who might aspire to
ascend the vacant throne could be supported only by the consciousness of
personal merit, or by the hopes of popular favor. But the situation of a
famished army, encompassed on all sides by a host of Barbarians, shortened
the moments of grief and deliberation. In this scene of terror and
distress, the body of the deceased prince, according to his own
directions, was decently embalmed; and, at the dawn of day, the generals
convened a military senate, at which the commanders of the legions, and
the officers both of cavalry and infantry, were invited to assist. Three
or four hours of the night had not passed away without some secret cabals;
and when the election of an emperor was proposed, the spirit of faction
began to agitate the assembly. Victor and Arinthæus collected the
remains of the court of Constantius; the friends of Julian attached
themselves to the Gallic chiefs, Dagalaiphus and Nevitta; and the most
fatal consequences might be apprehended from the discord of two factions,
so opposite in their character and interest, in their maxims of
government, and perhaps in their religious principles. The superior
virtues of Sallust could alone reconcile their divisions, and unite their
suffrages; and the venerable præfect would immediately have been
declared the successor of Julian, if he himself, with sincere and modest
firmness, had not alleged his age and infirmities, so unequal to the
weight of the diadem. The generals, who were surprised and perplexed by
his refusal, showed some disposition to adopt the salutary advice of an
inferior officer, that they should act as they would have acted in the
absence of the emperor; that they should exert their abilities to
extricate the army from the present distress; and, if they were fortunate
enough to reach the confines of Mesopotamia, they should proceed with
united and deliberate counsels in the election of a lawful sovereign.
While they debated, a few voices saluted Jovian, who was no more than
first of the domestics, with the names of
Emperor and Augustus. The tumultuary acclamation * was instantly repeated
by the guards who surrounded the tent, and passed, in a few minutes, to
the extremities of the line. The new prince, astonished with his own
fortune was hastily invested with the Imperial ornaments, and received an
oath of fidelity from the generals, whose favor and protection he so
lately solicited. The strongest recommendation of Jovian was the merit of
his father, Count Varronian, who enjoyed, in honorable retirement, the
fruit of his long services. In the obscure freedom of a private station,
the son indulged his taste for wine and women; yet he supported, with
credit, the character of a Christian and a soldier. Without being
conspicuous for any of the ambitious qualifications which excite the
admiration and envy of mankind, the comely person of Jovian, his cheerful
temper, and familiar wit, had gained the affection of his fellow-soldiers;
and the generals of both parties acquiesced in a popular election, which
had not been conducted by the arts of their enemies. The pride of this
unexpected elevation was moderated by the just apprehension, that the same
day might terminate the life and reign of the new emperor. The pressing
voice of necessity was obeyed without delay; and the first orders issued
by Jovian, a few hours after his predecessor had expired, were to
prosecute a march, which could alone extricate the Romans from their
actual distress.
The esteem of an enemy is most sincerely expressed by his fears; and the
degree of fear may be accurately measured by the joy with which he
celebrates his deliverance. The welcome news of the death of Julian, which
a deserter revealed to the camp of Sapor, inspired the desponding monarch
with a sudden confidence of victory. He immediately detached the royal
cavalry, perhaps the ten thousand Immortals, to second and support the
pursuit; and discharged the whole weight of his united forces on the
rear-guard of the Romans. The rear-guard was thrown into disorder; the
renowned legions, which derived their titles from Diocletian, and his
warlike colleague, were broke and trampled down by the elephants; and
three tribunes lost their lives in attempting to stop the flight of their
soldiers. The battle was at length restored by the persevering valor of
the Romans; the Persians were repulsed with a great slaughter of men and
elephants; and the army, after marching and fighting a long summer's day,
arrived, in the evening, at Samara, on the banks of the Tigris, about one
hundred miles above Ctesiphon. On the ensuing day, the Barbarians, instead
of harassing the march, attacked the camp, of Jovian; which had been
seated in a deep and sequestered valley. From the hills, the archers of
Persia insulted and annoyed the wearied legionaries; and a body of
cavalry, which had penetrated with desperate courage through the Prætorian
gate, was cut in pieces, after a doubtful conflict, near the Imperial
tent. In the succeeding night, the camp of Carche was protected by the
lofty dikes of the river; and the Roman army, though incessantly exposed
to the vexatious pursuit of the Saracens, pitched their tents near the
city of Dura, four days after the death of Julian. The Tigris was still on
their left; their hopes and provisions were almost consumed; and the
impatient soldiers, who had fondly persuaded themselves that the frontiers
of the empire were not far distant, requested their new sovereign, that
they might be permitted to hazard the passage of the river. With the
assistance of his wisest officers, Jovian endeavored to check their
rashness; by representing, that if they possessed sufficient skill and
vigor to stem the torrent of a deep and rapid stream, they would only
deliver themselves naked and defenceless to the Barbarians, who had
occupied the opposite banks, Yielding at length to their clamorous
importunities, he consented, with reluctance, that five hundred Gauls and
Germans, accustomed from their infancy to the waters of the Rhine and
Danube, should attempt the bold adventure, which might serve either as an
encouragement, or as a warning, for the rest of the army. In the silence
of the night, they swam the Tigris, surprised an unguarded post of the
enemy, and displayed at the dawn of day the signal of their resolution and
fortune. The success of this trial disposed the emperor to listen to the
promises of his architects, who propose to construct a floating bridge of
the inflated skins of sheep, oxen, and goats, covered with a floor of
earth and fascines. Two important days were spent in the ineffectual
labor; and the Romans, who already endured the miseries of famine, cast a
look of despair on the Tigris, and upon the Barbarians; whose numbers and
obstinacy increased with the distress of the Imperial army.
In this hopeless condition, the fainting spirits of the Romans were
revived by the sound of peace. The transient presumption of Sapor had
vanished: he observed, with serious concern, that, in the repetition of
doubtful combats, he had lost his most faithful and intrepid nobles, his
bravest troops, and the greatest part of his train of elephants: and the
experienced monarch feared to provoke the resistance of despair, the
vicissitudes of fortune, and the unexhausted powers of the Roman empire;
which might soon advance to relieve, or to revenge, the successor of
Julian. The Surenas himself, accompanied by another satrap, * appeared in
the camp of Jovian; and declared, that the clemency of his sovereign was
not averse to signify the conditions on which he would consent to spare
and to dismiss the Cæsar with the relics of his captive army. The
hopes of safety subdued the firmness of the Romans; the emperor was
compelled, by the advice of his council, and the cries of his soldiers, to
embrace the offer of peace; and the præfect Sallust was immediately
sent, with the general Arinthæus, to understand the pleasure of the
Great King. The crafty Persian delayed, under various pretenses, the
conclusion of the agreement; started difficulties, required explanations,
suggested expedients, receded from his concessions, increased his demands,
and wasted four days in the arts of negotiation, till he had consumed the
stock of provisions which yet remained in the camp of the Romans. Had
Jovian been capable of executing a bold and prudent measure, he would have
continued his march, with unremitting diligence; the progress of the
treaty would have suspended the attacks of the Barbarians; and, before the
expiration of the fourth day, he might have safely reached the fruitful
province of Corduene, at the distance only of one hundred miles. The
irresolute emperor, instead of breaking through the toils of the enemy,
expected his fate with patient resignation; and accepted the humiliating
conditions of peace, which it was no longer in his power to refuse. The
five provinces beyond the Tigris, which had been ceded by the grandfather
of Sapor, were restored to the Persian monarchy. He acquired, by a single
article, the impregnable city of Nisibis; which had sustained, in three
successive sieges, the effort of his arms. Singara, and the castle of the
Moors, one of the strongest places of Mesopotamia, were likewise
dismembered from the empire. It was considered as an indulgence, that the
inhabitants of those fortresses were permitted to retire with their
effects; but the conqueror rigorously insisted, that the Romans should
forever abandon the king and kingdom of Armenia. § A peace, or rather
a long truce, of thirty years, was stipulated between the hostile nations;
the faith of the treaty was ratified by solemn oaths and religious
ceremonies; and hostages of distinguished rank were reciprocally delivered
to secure the performance of the conditions.
The sophist of Antioch, who saw with indignation the sceptre of his hero
in the feeble hand of a Christian successor, professes to admire the
moderation of Sapor, in contenting himself with so small a portion of the
Roman empire. If he had stretched as far as the Euphrates the claims of
his ambition, he might have been secure, says Libanius, of not meeting
with a refusal. If he had fixed, as the boundary of Persia, the Orontes,
the Cydnus, the Sangarius, or even the Thracian Bosphorus, flatterers
would not have been wanting in the court of Jovian to convince the timid
monarch, that his remaining provinces would still afford the most ample
gratifications of power and luxury. Without adopting in its full force
this malicious insinuation, we must acknowledge, that the conclusion of so
ignominious a treaty was facilitated by the private ambition of Jovian.
The obscure domestic, exalted to the throne by fortune, rather than by
merit, was impatient to escape from the hands of the Persians, that he
might prevent the designs of Procopius, who commanded the army of
Mesopotamia, and establish his doubtful reign over the legions and
provinces which were still ignorant of the hasty and tumultuous choice of
the camp beyond the Tigris. In the neighborhood of the same river, at no
very considerable distance from the fatal station of Dura, the ten
thousand Greeks, without generals, or guides, or provisions, were
abandoned, above twelve hundred miles from their native country, to the
resentment of a victorious monarch. The difference of their
conduct and success depended much more on their character than on their
situation. Instead of tamely resigning themselves to the secret
deliberations and private views of a single person, the united councils of
the Greeks were inspired by the generous enthusiasm of a popular assembly;
where the mind of each citizen is filled with the love of glory, the pride
of freedom, and the contempt of death. Conscious of their superiority over
the Barbarians in arms and discipline, they disdained to yield, they
refused to capitulate: every obstacle was surmounted by their patience,
courage, and military skill; and the memorable retreat of the ten thousand
exposed and insulted the weakness of the Persian monarchy.
As the price of his disgraceful concessions, the emperor might perhaps
have stipulated, that the camp of the hungry Romans should be plentifully
supplied; and that they should be permitted to pass the Tigris on the
bridge which was constructed by the hands of the Persians. But, if Jovian
presumed to solicit those equitable terms, they were sternly refused by
the haughty tyrant of the East, whose clemency had pardoned the invaders
of his country. The Saracens sometimes intercepted the stragglers of the
march; but the generals and troops of Sapor respected the cessation of
arms; and Jovian was suffered to explore the most convenient place for the
passage of the river. The small vessels, which had been saved from the
conflagration of the fleet, performed the most essential service. They
first conveyed the emperor and his favorites; and afterwards transported,
in many successive voyages, a great part of the army. But, as every man
was anxious for his personal safety, and apprehensive of being left on the
hostile shore, the soldiers, who were too impatient to wait the slow
returns of the boats, boldly ventured themselves on light hurdles, or
inflated skins; and, drawing after them their horses, attempted, with
various success, to swim across the river. Many of these daring
adventurers were swallowed by the waves; many others, who were carried
along by the violence of the stream, fell an easy prey to the avarice or
cruelty of the wild Arabs: and the loss which the army sustained in the
passage of the Tigris, was not inferior to the carnage of a day of battle.
As soon as the Romans were landed on the western bank, they were delivered
from the hostile pursuit of the Barbarians; but, in a laborious march of
two hundred miles over the plains of Mesopotamia, they endured the last
extremities of thirst and hunger. They were obliged to traverse the sandy
desert, which, in the extent of seventy miles, did not afford a single
blade of sweet grass, nor a single spring of fresh water; and the rest of
the inhospitable waste was untrod by the footsteps either of friends or
enemies. Whenever a small measure of flour could be discovered in the
camp, twenty pounds weight were greedily purchased with ten pieces of
gold: the beasts of burden were slaughtered and devoured; and the desert
was strewed with the arms and baggage of the Roman soldiers, whose
tattered garments and meagre countenances displayed their past sufferings
and actual misery. A small convoy of provisions advanced to meet the army
as far as the castle of Ur; and the supply was the more grateful, since it
declared the fidelity of Sebastian and Procopius. At Thilsaphata, the
emperor most graciously received the generals of Mesopotamia; and the
remains of a once flourishing army at length reposed themselves under the
walls of Nisibis. The messengers of Jovian had already proclaimed, in the
language of flattery, his election, his treaty, and his return; and the
new prince had taken the most effectual measures to secure the allegiance
of the armies and provinces of Europe, by placing the military command in
the hands of those officers, who, from motives of interest, or
inclination, would firmly support the cause of their benefactor.
The friends of Julian had confidently announced the success of his
expedition. They entertained a fond persuasion that the temples of the
gods would be enriched with the spoils of the East; that Persia would be
reduced to the humble state of a tributary province, governed by the laws
and magistrates of Rome; that the Barbarians would adopt the dress, and
manners, and language of their conquerors; and that the youth of Ecbatana
and Susa would study the art of rhetoric under Grecian masters. The
progress of the arms of Julian interrupted his communication with the
empire; and, from the moment that he passed the Tigris, his affectionate
subjects were ignorant of the fate and fortunes of their prince. Their
contemplation of fancied triumphs was disturbed by the melancholy rumor of
his death; and they persisted to doubt, after they could no longer deny,
the truth of that fatal event. The messengers of Jovian promulgated the
specious tale of a prudent and necessary peace; the voice of fame, louder
and more sincere, revealed the disgrace of the emperor, and the conditions
of the ignominious treaty. The minds of the people were filled with
astonishment and grief, with indignation and terror, when they were
informed, that the unworthy successor of Julian relinquished the five
provinces which had been acquired by the victory of Galerius; and that he
shamefully surrendered to the Barbarians the important city of Nisibis,
the firmest bulwark of the provinces of the East. The deep and dangerous
question, how far the public faith should be observed, when it becomes
incompatible with the public safety, was freely agitated in popular
conversation; and some hopes were entertained that the emperor would
redeem his pusillanimous behavior by a splendid act of patriotic perfidy.
The inflexible spirit of the Roman senate had always disclaimed the
unequal conditions which were extorted from the distress of their captive
armies; and, if it were necessary to satisfy the national honor, by
delivering the guilty general into the hands of the Barbarians, the
greatest part of the subjects of Jovian would have cheerfully acquiesced
in the precedent of ancient times.
But the emperor, whatever might be the limits of his constitutional
authority, was the absolute master of the laws and arms of the state; and
the same motives which had forced him to subscribe, now pressed him to
execute, the treaty of peace. He was impatient to secure an empire at the
expense of a few provinces; and the respectable names of religion and
honor concealed the personal fears and ambition of Jovian. Notwithstanding
the dutiful solicitations of the inhabitants, decency, as well as
prudence, forbade the emperor to lodge in the palace of Nisibis; but the
next morning after his arrival, Bineses, the ambassador of Persia, entered
the place, displayed from the citadel the standard of the Great King, and
proclaimed, in his name, the cruel alternative of exile or servitude. The
principal citizens of Nisibis, who, till that fatal moment, had confided
in the protection of their sovereign, threw themselves at his feet. They
conjured him not to abandon, or, at least, not to deliver, a faithful
colony to the rage of a Barbarian tyrant, exasperated by the three
successive defeats which he had experienced under the walls of Nisibis.
They still possessed arms and courage to repel the invaders of their
country: they requested only the permission of using them in their own
defence; and, as soon as they had asserted their independence, they should
implore the favor of being again admitted into the ranks of his subjects.
Their arguments, their eloquence, their tears, were ineffectual. Jovian
alleged, with some confusion, the sanctity of oaths; and, as the
reluctance with which he accepted the present of a crown of gold,
convinced the citizens of their hopeless condition, the advocate Sylvanus
was provoked to exclaim, "O emperor! may you thus be crowned by all the
cities of your dominions!" Jovian, who in a few weeks had assumed the
habits of a prince, was displeased with freedom, and offended with truth:
and as he reasonably supposed, that the discontent of the people might
incline them to submit to the Persian government, he published an edict,
under pain of death, that they should leave the city within the term of
three days. Ammianus has delineated in lively colors the scene of
universal despair, which he seems to have viewed with an eye of
compassion. The martial youth deserted, with indignant grief, the walls
which they had so gloriously defended: the disconsolate mourner dropped a
last tear over the tomb of a son or husband, which must soon be profaned
by the rude hand of a Barbarian master; and the aged citizen kissed the
threshold, and clung to the doors, of the house where he had passed the
cheerful and careless hours of infancy. The highways were crowded with a
trembling multitude: the distinctions of rank, and sex, and age, were lost
in the general calamity. Every one strove to bear away some fragment from
the wreck of his fortunes; and as they could not command the immediate
service of an adequate number of horses or wagons, they were obliged to
leave behind them the greatest part of their valuable effects. The savage
insensibility of Jovian appears to have aggravated the hardships of these
unhappy fugitives. They were seated, however, in a new-built quarter of
Amida; and that rising city, with the reenforcement of a very considerable
colony, soon recovered its former splendor, and became the capital of
Mesopotamia. Similar orders were despatched by the emperor for the
evacuation of Singara and the castle of the Moors; and for the restitution
of the five provinces beyond the Tigris. Sapor enjoyed the glory and the
fruits of his victory; and this ignominious peace has justly been
considered as a memorable æra in the decline and fall of the Roman
empire. The predecessors of Jovian had sometimes relinquished the dominion
of distant and unprofitable provinces; but, since the foundation of the
city, the genius of Rome, the god Terminus, who guarded the boundaries of
the republic, had never retired before the sword of a victorious enemy.
After Jovian had performed those engagements which the voice of his people
might have tempted him to violate, he hastened away from the scene of his
disgrace, and proceeded with his whole court to enjoy the luxury of
Antioch. Without consulting the dictates of religious zeal, he was
prompted, by humanity and gratitude, to bestow the last honors on the
remains of his deceased sovereign: and Procopius, who sincerely bewailed
the loss of his kinsman, was removed from the command of the army, under
the decent pretence of conducting the funeral. The corpse of Julian was
transported from Nisibis to Tarsus, in a slow march of fifteen days; and,
as it passed through the cities of the East, was saluted by the hostile
factions, with mournful lamentations and clamorous insults. The Pagans
already placed their beloved hero in the rank of those gods whose worship
he had restored; while the invectives of the Christians pursued the soul
of the Apostate to hell, and his body to the grave. One party lamented the
approaching ruin of their altars; the other celebrated the marvellous
deliverance of their church. The Christians applauded, in lofty and
ambiguous strains, the stroke of divine vengeance, which had been so long
suspended over the guilty head of Julian. They acknowledge, that the death
of the tyrant, at the instant he expired beyond the Tigris, was revealed
to the saints of Egypt, Syria, and Cappadocia; and instead of suffering
him to fall by the Persian darts, their indiscretion ascribed the heroic
deed to the obscure hand of some mortal or immortal champion of the faith.
Such imprudent declarations were eagerly adopted by the malice, or
credulity, of their adversaries; who darkly insinuated, or confidently
asserted, that the governors of the church had instigated and directed the
fanaticism of a domestic assassin. Above sixteen years after the death of
Julian, the charge was solemnly and vehemently urged, in a public oration,
addressed by Libanius to the emperor Theodosius. His suspicions are
unsupported by fact or argument; and we can only esteem the generous zeal
of the sophist of Antioch for the cold and neglected ashes of his friend.
It was an ancient custom in the funerals, as well as in the triumphs, of
the Romans, that the voice of praise should be corrected by that of satire
and ridicule; and that, in the midst of the splendid pageants, which
displayed the glory of the living or of the dead, their imperfections
should not be concealed from the eyes of the world. This custom was
practised in the funeral of Julian. The comedians, who resented his
contempt and aversion for the theatre, exhibited, with the applause of a
Christian audience, the lively and exaggerated representation of the
faults and follies of the deceased emperor. His various character and
singular manners afforded an ample scope for pleasantry and ridicule. In
the exercise of his uncommon talents, he often descended below the majesty
of his rank. Alexander was transformed into Diogenes; the philosopher was
degraded into a priest. The purity of his virtue was sullied by excessive
vanity; his superstition disturbed the peace, and endangered the safety,
of a mighty empire; and his irregular sallies were the less entitled to
indulgence, as they appeared to be the laborious efforts of art, or even
of affectation. The remains of Julian were interred at Tarsus in Cilicia;
but his stately tomb, which arose in that city, on the banks of the cold
and limpid Cydnus, was displeasing to the faithful friends, who loved and
revered the memory of that extraordinary man. The philosopher expressed a
very reasonable wish, that the disciple of Plato might have reposed amidst
the groves of the academy; while the soldier exclaimed, in bolder accents,
that the ashes of Julian should have been mingled with those of Cæsar,
in the field of Mars, and among the ancient monuments of Roman virtue. The
history of princes does not very frequently renew the examples of a
similar competition.
The Government And Death Of Jovian.—Election Of Valentinian, Who Associates His Brother Valens, And Makes The Final Division Of The Eastern And Western Empires.—Revolt Of Procopius.—Civil And Ecclesiastical Administration.— Germany.—Britain.—Africa.—The East.—The Danube.— Death Of Valentinian.—His Two Sons, Gratian And Valentinian II., Succeed To The Western Empire.
The death of Julian had left the public affairs of the empire in a very
doubtful and dangerous situation. The Roman army was saved by an
inglorious, perhaps a necessary treaty; and the first moments of peace
were consecrated by the pious Jovian to restore the domestic tranquility
of the church and state. The indiscretion of his predecessor, instead of
reconciling, had artfully fomented the religious war: and the balance
which he affected to preserve between the hostile factions, served only to
perpetuate the contest, by the vicissitudes of hope and fear, by the rival
claims of ancient possession and actual favor. The Christians had
forgotten the spirit of the gospel; and the Pagans had imbibed the spirit
of the church. In private families, the sentiments of nature were
extinguished by the blind fury of zeal and revenge: the majesty of the
laws was violated or abused; the cities of the East were stained with
blood; and the most implacable enemies of the Romans were in the bosom of
their country. Jovian was educated in the profession of Christianity; and
as he marched from Nisibis to Antioch, the banner of the Cross, the
Labarum of Constantine, which was again displayed at the head of the
legions, announced to the people the faith of their new emperor. As soon
as he ascended the throne, he transmitted a circular epistle to all the
governors of provinces; in which he confessed the divine truth, and
secured the legal establishment, of the Christian religion. The insidious
edicts of Julian were abolished; the ecclesiastical immunities were
restored and enlarged; and Jovian condescended to lament, that the
distress of the times obliged him to diminish the measure of charitable
distributions. The Christians were unanimous in the loud and sincere
applause which they bestowed on the pious successor of Julian. But they
were still ignorant what creed, or what synod, he would choose for the
standard of orthodoxy; and the peace of the church immediately revived
those eager disputes which had been suspended during the season of
persecution. The episcopal leaders of the contending sects, convinced,
from experience, how much their fate would depend on the earliest
impressions that were made on the mind of an untutored soldier, hastened
to the court of Edessa, or Antioch. The highways of the East were crowded
with Homoousian, and Arian, and Semi-Arian, and Eunomian bishops, who
struggled to outstrip each other in the holy race: the apartments of the
palace resounded with their clamors; and the ears of the prince were
assaulted, and perhaps astonished, by the singular mixture of metaphysical
argument and passionate invective. The moderation of Jovian, who
recommended concord and charity, and referred the disputants to the
sentence of a future council, was interpreted as a symptom of
indifference: but his attachment to the Nicene creed was at length
discovered and declared, by the reverence which he expressed for the
celestial virtues of the great Athanasius. The
intrepid veteran of the faith, at the age of seventy, had issued from his
retreat on the first intelligence of the tyrant's death. The acclamations
of the people seated him once more on the archiepiscopal throne; and he
wisely accepted, or anticipated, the invitation of Jovian. The venerable
figure of Athanasius, his calm courage, and insinuating eloquence,
sustained the reputation which he had already acquired in the courts of
four successive princes. As soon as he had gained the confidence, and
secured the faith, of the Christian emperor, he returned in triumph to his
diocese, and continued, with mature counsels and undiminished vigor, to
direct, ten years longer, the ecclesiastical government of Alexandria,
Egypt, and the Catholic church. Before his departure from Antioch, he
assured Jovian that his orthodox devotion would be rewarded with a long
and peaceful reign. Athanasius, had reason to hope, that he should be
allowed either the merit of a successful prediction, or the excuse of a
grateful though ineffectual prayer.
The slightest force, when it is applied to assist and guide the natural
descent of its object, operates with irresistible weight; and Jovian had
the good fortune to embrace the religious opinions which were supported by
the spirit of the times, and the zeal and numbers of the most powerful
sect. Under his reign, Christianity obtained an easy and lasting victory;
and as soon as the smile of royal patronage was withdrawn, the genius of
Paganism, which had been fondly raised and cherished by the arts of
Julian, sunk irrecoverably. In many cities, the temples were shut or
deserted: the philosophers who had abused their transient favor, thought
it prudent to shave their beards, and disguise their profession; and the
Christians rejoiced, that they were now in a condition to forgive, or to
revenge, the injuries which they had suffered under the preceding reign.
The consternation of the Pagan world was dispelled by a wise and gracious
edict of toleration; in which Jovian explicitly declared, that although he
should severely punish the sacrilegious rites of magic, his subjects might
exercise, with freedom and safety, the ceremonies of the ancient worship.
The memory of this law has been preserved by the orator Themistius, who
was deputed by the senate of Constantinople to express their royal
devotion for the new emperor. Themistius expatiates on the clemency of the
Divine Nature, the facility of human error, the rights of conscience, and
the independence of the mind; and, with some eloquence, inculcates the
principles of philosophical toleration; whose aid Superstition herself, in
the hour of her distress, is not ashamed to implore. He justly observes,
that in the recent changes, both religions had been alternately disgraced
by the seeming acquisition of worthless proselytes, of those votaries of
the reigning purple, who could pass, without a reason, and without a
blush, from the church to the temple, and from the altars of Jupiter to
the sacred table of the Christians.
In the space of seven months, the Roman troops, who were now returned to
Antioch, had performed a march of fifteen hundred miles; in which they had
endured all the hardships of war, of famine, and of climate.
Notwithstanding their services, their fatigues, and the approach of
winter, the timid and impatient Jovian allowed only, to the men and
horses, a respite of six weeks. The emperor could not sustain the
indiscreet and malicious raillery of the people of Antioch. He was
impatient to possess the palace of Constantinople; and to prevent the
ambition of some competitor, who might occupy the vacant allegiance of
Europe. But he soon received the grateful intelligence, that his authority
was acknowledged from the Thracian Bosphorus to the Atlantic Ocean. By the
first letters which he despatched from the camp of Mesopotamia, he had
delegated the military command of Gaul and Illyricum to Malarich, a brave
and faithful officer of the nation of the Franks; and to his
father-in-law, Count Lucillian, who had formerly distinguished his courage
and conduct in the defence of Nisibis. Malarich had declined an office to
which he thought himself unequal; and Lucillian was massacred at Rheims,
in an accidental mutiny of the Batavian cohorts. But the moderation of
Jovinus, master-general of the cavalry, who forgave the intention of his
disgrace, soon appeased the tumult, and confirmed the uncertain minds of
the soldiers. The oath of fidelity was administered and taken, with loyal
acclamations; and the deputies of the Western armies saluted their new
sovereign as he descended from Mount Taurus to the city of Tyana in
Cappadocia. From Tyana he continued his hasty march to Ancyra, capital of
the province of Galatia; where Jovian assumed, with his infant son, the
name and ensigns of the consulship. Dadastana, an obscure town, almost at
an equal distance between Ancyra and Nice, was marked for the fatal term
of his journey and life. After indulging himself with a plentiful, perhaps
an intemperate, supper, he retired to rest; and the next morning the
emperor Jovian was found dead in his bed. The cause of this sudden death
was variously understood. By some it was ascribed to the consequences of
an indigestion, occasioned either by the quantity of the wine, or the
quality of the mushrooms, which he had swallowed in the evening. According
to others, he was suffocated in his sleep by the vapor of charcoal, which
extracted from the walls of the apartment the unwholesome moisture of the
fresh plaster. But the want of a regular inquiry into the death of a
prince, whose reign and person were soon forgotten, appears to have been
the only circumstance which countenanced the malicious whispers of poison
and domestic guilt. The body of Jovian was sent to Constantinople, to be
interred with his predecessors, and the sad procession was met on the road
by his wife Charito, the daughter of Count Lucillian; who still wept the
recent death of her father, and was hastening to dry her tears in the
embraces of an Imperial husband. Her disappointment and grief were
imbittered by the anxiety of maternal tenderness. Six weeks before the
death of Jovian, his infant son had been placed in the curule chair,
adorned with the title of Nobilissimus, and the
vain ensigns of the consulship. Unconscious of his fortune, the royal
youth, who, from his grandfather, assumed the name of Varronian, was
reminded only by the jealousy of the government, that he was the son of an
emperor. Sixteen years afterwards he was still alive, but he had already
been deprived of an eye; and his afflicted mother expected every hour,
that the innocent victim would be torn from her arms, to appease, with his
blood, the suspicions of the reigning prince.
After the death of Jovian, the throne of the Roman world remained ten
days, without a master. The ministers and generals still continued to meet
in council; to exercise their respective functions; to maintain the public
order; and peaceably to conduct the army to the city of Nice in Bithynia,
which was chosen for the place of the election. In a solemn assembly of
the civil and military powers of the empire, the diadem was again
unanimously offered to the præfect Sallust. He enjoyed the glory of
a second refusal: and when the virtues of the father were alleged in favor
of his son, the præfect, with the firmness of a disinterested
patriot, declared to the electors, that the feeble age of the one, and the
unexperienced youth of the other, were equally incapable of the laborious
duties of government. Several candidates were proposed; and, after
weighing the objections of character or situation, they were successively
rejected; but, as soon as the name of Valentinian was pronounced, the
merit of that officer united the suffrages of the whole assembly, and
obtained the sincere approbation of Sallust himself. Valentinian was the
son of Count Gratian, a native of Cibalis, in Pannonia, who from an
obscure condition had raised himself, by matchless strength and dexterity,
to the military commands of Africa and Britain; from which he retired with
an ample fortune and suspicious integrity. The rank and services of
Gratian contributed, however, to smooth the first steps of the promotion
of his son; and afforded him an early opportunity of displaying those
solid and useful qualifications, which raised his character above the
ordinary level of his fellow-soldiers. The person of Valentinian was tall,
graceful, and majestic. His manly countenance, deeply marked with the
impression of sense and spirit, inspired his friends with awe, and his
enemies with fear; and to second the efforts of his undaunted courage, the
son of Gratian had inherited the advantages of a strong and healthy
constitution. By the habits of chastity and temperance, which restrain the
appetites and invigorate the faculties, Valentinian preserved his own and
the public esteem. The avocations of a military life had diverted his
youth from the elegant pursuits of literature; * he was ignorant of the
Greek language, and the arts of rhetoric; but as the mind of the orator
was never disconcerted by timid perplexity, he was able, as often as the
occasion prompted him, to deliver his decided sentiments with bold and
ready elocution. The laws of martial discipline were the only laws that he
had studied; and he was soon distinguished by the laborious diligence, and
inflexible severity, with which he discharged and enforced the duties of
the camp. In the time of Julian he provoked the danger of disgrace, by the
contempt which he publicly expressed for the reigning religion; and it
should seem, from his subsequent conduct, that the indiscreet and
unseasonable freedom of Valentinian was the effect of military spirit,
rather than of Christian zeal. He was pardoned, however, and still
employed by a prince who esteemed his merit; and in the various events of
the Persian war, he improved the reputation which he had already acquired
on the banks of the Rhine. The celerity and success with which he executed
an important commission, recommended him to the favor of Jovian; and to
the honorable command of the second school, or company, of Targetiers, of
the domestic guards. In the march from Antioch, he had reached his
quarters at Ancyra, when he was unexpectedly summoned, without guilt and
without intrigue, to assume, in the forty-third year of his age, the
absolute government of the Roman empire.
The invitation of the ministers and generals at Nice was of little moment,
unless it were confirmed by the voice of the army. The aged Sallust, who
had long observed the irregular fluctuations of popular assemblies,
proposed, under pain of death, that none of those persons, whose rank in
the service might excite a party in their favor, should appear in public
on the day of the inauguration. Yet such was the prevalence of ancient
superstition, that a whole day was voluntarily added to this dangerous
interval, because it happened to be the intercalation of the Bissextile.
At length, when the hour was supposed to be propitious, Valentinian showed
himself from a lofty tribunal; the judicious choice was applauded; and the
new prince was solemnly invested with the diadem and the purple, amidst
the acclamation of the troops, who were disposed in martial order round
the tribunal. But when he stretched forth his hand to address the armed
multitude, a busy whisper was accidentally started in the ranks, and
insensibly swelled into a loud and imperious clamor, that he should name,
without delay, a colleague in the empire. The intrepid calmness of
Valentinian obtained silence, and commanded respect; and he thus addressed
the assembly: "A few minutes since it was in your
power, fellow-soldiers, to have left me in the obscurity of a private
station. Judging, from the testimony of my past life, that I deserved to
reign, you have placed me on the throne. It is now my
duty to consult the safety and interest of the republic. The weight of the
universe is undoubtedly too great for the hands of a feeble mortal. I am
conscious of the limits of my abilities, and the uncertainty of my life;
and far from declining, I am anxious to solicit, the assistance of a
worthy colleague. But, where discord may be fatal, the choice of a
faithful friend requires mature and serious deliberation. That
deliberation shall be my care. Let your
conduct be dutiful and consistent. Retire to your quarters; refresh your
minds and bodies; and expect the accustomed donative on the accession of a
new emperor." The astonished troops, with a mixture of pride, of
satisfaction, and of terror, confessed the voice of their master. Their
angry clamors subsided into silent reverence; and Valentinian, encompassed
with the eagles of the legions, and the various banners of the cavalry and
infantry, was conducted, in warlike pomp, to the palace of Nice. As he was
sensible, however, of the importance of preventing some rash declaration
of the soldiers, he consulted the assembly of the chiefs; and their real
sentiments were concisely expressed by the generous freedom of
Dagalaiphus. "Most excellent prince," said that officer, "if you consider
only your family, you have a brother; if you love the republic, look round
for the most deserving of the Romans." The emperor, who suppressed his
displeasure, without altering his intention, slowly proceeded from Nice to
Nicomedia and Constantinople. In one of the suburbs of that capital,
thirty days after his own elevation, he bestowed the title of Augustus on
his brother Valens; * and as the boldest patriots were convinced, that
their opposition, without being serviceable to their country, would be
fatal to themselves, the declaration of his absolute will was received
with silent submission. Valens was now in the thirty-sixth year of his
age; but his abilities had never been exercised in any employment,
military or civil; and his character had not inspired the world with any
sanguine expectations. He possessed, however, one quality, which
recommended him to Valentinian, and preserved the domestic peace of the
empire; devout and grateful attachment to his benefactor, whose
superiority of genius, as well as of authority, Valens humbly and
cheerfully acknowledged in every action of his life.
Before Valentinian divided the provinces, he reformed the administration
of the empire. All ranks of subjects, who had been injured or oppressed
under the reign of Julian, were invited to support their public
accusations. The silence of mankind attested the spotless integrity of the
præfect Sallust; and his own pressing solicitations, that he might
be permitted to retire from the business of the state, were rejected by
Valentinian with the most honorable expressions of friendship and esteem.
But among the favorites of the late emperor, there were many who had
abused his credulity or superstition; and who could no longer hope to be
protected either by favor or justice. The greater part of the ministers of
the palace, and the governors of the provinces, were removed from their
respective stations; yet the eminent merit of some officers was
distinguished from the obnoxious crowd; and, notwithstanding the opposite
clamors of zeal and resentment, the whole proceedings of this delicate
inquiry appear to have been conducted with a reasonable share of wisdom
and moderation. The festivity of a new reign received a short and
suspicious interruption from the sudden illness of the two princes; but as
soon as their health was restored, they left Constantinople in the
beginning of the spring. In the castle, or palace, of Mediana, only three
miles from Naissus, they executed the solemn and final division of the
Roman empire. Valentinian bestowed on his brother the rich præfecture
of the East, from the Lower Danube to the
confines of Persia; whilst he reserved for his immediate government the
warlike * præfectures of Illyricum,
Italy, and Gaul, from
the extremity of Greece to the Caledonian rampart, and from the rampart of
Caledonia to the foot of Mount Atlas. The provincial administration
remained on its former basis; but a double supply of generals and
magistrates was required for two councils, and two courts: the division
was made with a just regard to their peculiar merit and situation, and
seven master-generals were soon created, either of the cavalry or
infantry. When this important business had been amicably transacted,
Valentinian and Valens embraced for the last time. The emperor of the West
established his temporary residence at Milan; and the emperor of the East
returned to Constantinople, to assume the dominion of fifty provinces, of
whose language he was totally ignorant.
The tranquility of the East was soon disturbed by rebellion; and the
throne of Valens was threatened by the daring attempts of a rival whose
affinity to the emperor Julian was his sole merit, and had been his only
crime. Procopius had been hastily promoted from the obscure station of a
tribune, and a notary, to the joint command of the army of Mesopotamia;
the public opinion already named him as the successor of a prince who was
destitute of natural heirs; and a vain rumor was propagated by his
friends, or his enemies, that Julian, before the altar of the Moon at
Carrhæ, had privately invested Procopius with the Imperial purple.
He endeavored, by his dutiful and submissive behavior, to disarm the
jealousy of Jovian; resigned, without a contest, his military command; and
retired, with his wife and family, to cultivate the ample patrimony which
he possessed in the province of Cappadocia. These useful and innocent
occupations were interrupted by the appearance of an officer with a band
of soldiers, who, in the name of his new sovereigns, Valentinian and
Valens, was despatched to conduct the unfortunate Procopius either to a
perpetual prison or an ignominious death. His presence of mind procured
him a longer respite, and a more splendid fate. Without presuming to
dispute the royal mandate, he requested the indulgence of a few moments to
embrace his weeping family; and while the vigilance of his guards was
relaxed by a plentiful entertainment, he dexterously escaped to the
sea-coast of the Euxine, from whence he passed over to the country of
Bosphorus. In that sequestered region he remained many months, exposed to
the hardships of exile, of solitude, and of want; his melancholy temper
brooding over his misfortunes, and his mind agitated by the just
apprehension, that, if any accident should discover his name, the
faithless Barbarians would violate, without much scruple, the laws of
hospitality. In a moment of impatience and despair, Procopius embarked in
a merchant vessel, which made sail for Constantinople; and boldly aspired
to the rank of a sovereign, because he was not allowed to enjoy the
security of a subject. At first he lurked in the villages of Bithynia,
continually changing his habitation and his disguise. By degrees he
ventured into the capital, trusted his life and fortune to the fidelity of
two friends, a senator and a eunuch, and conceived some hopes of success,
from the intelligence which he obtained of the actual state of public
affairs. The body of the people was infected with a spirit of discontent:
they regretted the justice and the abilities of Sallust, who had been
imprudently dismissed from the præfecture of the East. They despised
the character of Valens, which was rude without vigor, and feeble without
mildness. They dreaded the influence of his father-in-law, the patrician
Petronius, a cruel and rapacious minister, who rigorously exacted all the
arrears of tribute that might remain unpaid since the reign of the emperor
Aurelian. The circumstances were propitious to the designs of a usurper.
The hostile measures of the Persians required the presence of Valens in
Syria: from the Danube to the Euphrates the troops were in motion; and the
capital was occasionally filled with the soldiers who passed or repassed
the Thracian Bosphorus. Two cohorts of Gaul were persuaded to listen to
the secret proposals of the conspirators; which were recommended by the
promise of a liberal donative; and, as they still revered the memory of
Julian, they easily consented to support the hereditary claim of his
proscribed kinsman. At the dawn of day they were drawn up near the baths
of Anastasia; and Procopius, clothed in a purple garment, more suitable to
a player than to a monarch, appeared, as if he rose from the dead, in the
midst of Constantinople. The soldiers, who were prepared for his
reception, saluted their trembling prince with shouts of joy and vows of
fidelity. Their numbers were soon increased by a band of sturdy peasants,
collected from the adjacent country; and Procopius, shielded by the arms
of his adherents, was successively conducted to the tribunal, the senate,
and the palace. During the first moments of his tumultuous reign, he was
astonished and terrified by the gloomy silence of the people; who were
either ignorant of the cause, or apprehensive of the event. But his
military strength was superior to any actual resistance: the malcontents
flocked to the standard of rebellion; the poor were excited by the hopes,
and the rich were intimidated by the fear, of a general pillage; and the
obstinate credulity of the multitude was once more deceived by the
promised advantages of a revolution. The magistrates were seized; the
prisons and arsenals broke open; the gates, and the entrance of the
harbor, were diligently occupied; and, in a few hours, Procopius became
the absolute, though precarious, master of the Imperial city. * The
usurper improved this unexpected success with some degree of courage and
dexterity. He artfully propagated the rumors and opinions the most
favorable to his interest; while he deluded the populace by giving
audience to the frequent, but imaginary, ambassadors of distant nations.
The large bodies of troops stationed in the cities of Thrace and the
fortresses of the Lower Danube, were gradually involved in the guilt of
rebellion: and the Gothic princes consented to supply the sovereign of
Constantinople with the formidable strength of several thousand
auxiliaries. His generals passed the Bosphorus, and subdued, without an
effort, the unarmed, but wealthy provinces of Bithynia and Asia. After an
honorable defence, the city and island of Cyzicus yielded to his power;
the renowned legions of the Jovians and Herculians embraced the cause of
the usurper, whom they were ordered to crush; and, as the veterans were
continually augmented with new levies, he soon appeared at the head of an
army, whose valor, as well as numbers, were not unequal to the greatness
of the contest. The son of Hormisdas, a youth of spirit and ability,
condescended to draw his sword against the lawful emperor of the East; and
the Persian prince was immediately invested with the ancient and
extraordinary powers of a Roman Proconsul. The alliance of Faustina, the
widow of the emperor Constantius, who intrusted herself and her daughter
to the hands of the usurper, added dignity and reputation to his cause.
The princess Constantia, who was then about five years of age,
accompanied, in a litter, the march of the army. She was shown to the
multitude in the arms of her adopted father; and, as often as she passed
through the ranks, the tenderness of the soldiers was inflamed into
martial fury: they recollected the glories of the house of Constantine,
and they declared, with loyal acclamation, that they would shed the last
drop of their blood in the defence of the royal infant.
In the mean while Valentinian was alarmed and perplexed by the doubtful
intelligence of the revolt of the East. * The difficulties of a German war
forced him to confine his immediate care to the safety of his own
dominions; and, as every channel of communication was stopped or
corrupted, he listened, with doubtful anxiety, to the rumors which were
industriously spread, that the defeat and death of Valens had left
Procopius sole master of the Eastern provinces. Valens was not dead: but
on the news of the rebellion, which he received at Cæsarea, he
basely despaired of his life and fortune; proposed to negotiate with the
usurper, and discovered his secret inclination to abdicate the Imperial
purple. The timid monarch was saved from disgrace and ruin by the firmness
of his ministers, and their abilities soon decided in his favor the event
of the civil war. In a season of tranquillity, Sallust had resigned
without a murmur; but as soon as the public safety was attacked, he
ambitiously solicited the preeminence of toil and danger; and the
restoration of that virtuous minister to the præfecture of the East,
was the first step which indicated the repentance of Valens, and satisfied
the minds of the people. The reign of Procopius was apparently supported
by powerful armies and obedient provinces. But many of the principal
officers, military as well as civil, had been urged, either by motives of
duty or interest, to withdraw themselves from the guilty scene; or to
watch the moment of betraying, and deserting, the cause of the usurper.
Lupicinus advanced by hasty marches, to bring the legions of Syria to the
aid of Valens. Arintheus, who, in strength, beauty, and valor, excelled
all the heroes of the age, attacked with a small troop a superior body of
the rebels. When he beheld the faces of the soldiers who had served under
his banner, he commanded them, with a loud voice, to seize and deliver up
their pretended leader; and such was the ascendant of his genius, that
this extraordinary order was instantly obeyed. Arbetio, a respectable
veteran of the great Constantine, who had been distinguished by the honors
of the consulship, was persuaded to leave his retirement, and once more to
conduct an army into the field. In the heat of action, calmly taking off
his helmet, he showed his gray hairs and venerable countenance: saluted
the soldiers of Procopius by the endearing names of children and
companions, and exhorted them no longer to support the desperate cause of
a contemptible tyrant; but to follow their old commander, who had so often
led them to honor and victory. In the two engagements of Thyatira and
Nacolia, the unfortunate Procopius was deserted by his troops, who were
seduced by the instructions and example of their perfidious officers.
After wandering some time among the woods and mountains of Phrygia, he was
betrayed by his desponding followers, conducted to the Imperial camp, and
immediately beheaded. He suffered the ordinary fate of an unsuccessful
usurper; but the acts of cruelty which were exercised by the conqueror,
under the forms of legal justice, excited the pity and indignation of
mankind.
Such indeed are the common and natural fruits of despotism and rebellion.
But the inquisition into the crime of magic, which, under the reign of the
two brothers, was so rigorously prosecuted both at Rome and Antioch, was
interpreted as the fatal symptom, either of the displeasure of Heaven, or
of the depravity of mankind. Let us not hesitate to indulge a liberal
pride, that, in the present age, the enlightened part of Europe has
abolished a cruel and odious prejudice, which reigned in every climate of
the globe, and adhered to every system of religious opinions. The nations,
and the sects, of the Roman world, admitted with equal credulity, and
similar abhorrence, the reality of that infernal art, which was able to
control the eternal order of the planets, and the voluntary operations of
the human mind. They dreaded the mysterious power of spells and
incantations, of potent herbs, and execrable rites; which could extinguish
or recall life, inflame the passions of the soul, blast the works of
creation, and extort from the reluctant dæmons the secrets of
futurity. They believed, with the wildest inconsistency, that this
preternatural dominion of the air, of earth, and of hell, was exercised,
from the vilest motives of malice or gain, by some wrinkled hags and
itinerant sorcerers, who passed their obscure lives in penury and
contempt. The arts of magic were equally condemned by the public opinion,
and by the laws of Rome; but as they tended to gratify the most imperious
passions of the heart of man, they were continually proscribed, and
continually practised. An imaginary cause was capable of producing the most
serious and mischievous effects. The dark predictions of the death of an
emperor, or the success of a conspiracy, were calculated only to stimulate
the hopes of ambition, and to dissolve the ties of fidelity; and the
intentional guilt of magic was aggravated by the actual crimes of treason
and sacrilege. Such vain terrors disturbed the peace of society, and the
happiness of individuals; and the harmless flame which insensibly melted a
waxen image, might derive a powerful and pernicious energy from the
affrighted fancy of the person whom it was maliciously designed to
represent. From the infusion of those herbs, which were supposed to
possess a supernatural influence, it was an easy step to the use of more
substantial poison; and the folly of mankind sometimes became the
instrument, and the mask, of the most atrocious crimes. As soon as the
zeal of informers was encouraged by the ministers of Valens and
Valentinian, they could not refuse to listen to another charge, too
frequently mingled in the scenes of domestic guilt; a charge of a softer
and less malignant nature, for which the pious, though excessive, rigor of
Constantine had recently decreed the punishment of death. This deadly and
incoherent mixture of treason and magic, of poison and adultery, afforded
infinite gradations of guilt and innocence, of excuse and aggravation,
which in these proceedings appear to have been confounded by the angry or
corrupt passions of the judges. They easily discovered that the degree of
their industry and discernment was estimated, by the Imperial court,
according to the number of executions that were furnished from the
respective tribunals. It was not without extreme reluctance that they
pronounced a sentence of acquittal; but they eagerly admitted such
evidence as was stained with perjury, or procured by torture, to prove the
most improbable charges against the most respectable characters. The
progress of the inquiry continually opened new subjects of criminal
prosecution; the audacious informer, whose falsehood was detected, retired
with impunity; but the wretched victim, who discovered his real or
pretended accomplices, were seldom permitted to receive the price of his
infamy. From the extremity of Italy and Asia, the young, and the aged,
were dragged in chains to the tribunals of Rome and Antioch. Senators,
matrons, and philosophers, expired in ignominious and cruel tortures. The
soldiers, who were appointed to guard the prisons, declared, with a murmur
of pity and indignation, that their numbers were insufficient to oppose
the flight, or resistance, of the multitude of captives. The wealthiest
families were ruined by fines and confiscations; the most innocent
citizens trembled for their safety; and we may form some notion of the
magnitude of the evil, from the extravagant assertion of an ancient
writer, that, in the obnoxious provinces, the prisoners, the exiles, and
the fugitives, formed the greatest part of the inhabitants.
When Tacitus describes the deaths of the innocent and illustrious Romans,
who were sacrificed to the cruelty of the first Cæsars, the art of
the historian, or the merit of the sufferers, excites in our breast the
most lively sensations of terror, of admiration, and of pity. The coarse
and undistinguishing pencil of Ammianus has delineated his bloody figures
with tedious and disgusting accuracy. But as our attention is no longer
engaged by the contrast of freedom and servitude, of recent greatness and
of actual misery, we should turn with horror from the frequent executions,
which disgraced, both at Rome and Antioch, the reign of the two brothers.
Valens was of a timid, and Valentinian of a choleric, disposition. An
anxious regard to his personal safety was the ruling principle of the
administration of Valens. In the condition of a subject, he had kissed,
with trembling awe, the hand of the oppressor; and when he ascended the
throne, he reasonably expected, that the same fears, which had subdued his
own mind, would secure the patient submission of his people. The favorites
of Valens obtained, by the privilege of rapine and confiscation, the
wealth which his economy would have refused. They urged, with persuasive
eloquence, that, in all cases of treason,
suspicion is equivalent to proof; that the power
supposes the intention, of mischief; that the
intention is not less criminal than the act; and that
a subject no longer deserves to live, if his life may threaten the safety,
or disturb the repose, of his sovereign. The judgment of Valentinian was
sometimes deceived, and his confidence abused; but he would have silenced
the informers with a contemptuous smile, had they presumed to alarm his
fortitude by the sound of danger. They praised his inflexible love of
justice; and, in the pursuit of justice, the emperor was easily tempted to
consider clemency as a weakness, and passion as a virtue. As long as he
wrestled with his equals, in the bold competition of an active and
ambitious life, Valentinian was seldom injured, and never insulted, with
impunity: if his prudence was arraigned, his spirit was applauded; and the
proudest and most powerful generals were apprehensive of provoking the
resentment of a fearless soldier. After he became master of the world, he
unfortunately forgot, that where no resistance can be made, no courage can
be exerted; and instead of consulting the dictates of reason and
magnanimity, he indulged the furious emotions of his temper, at a time
when they were disgraceful to himself, and fatal to the defenceless
objects of his displeasure. In the government of his household, or of his
empire, slight, or even imaginary, offences—a hasty word, a casual
omission, an involuntary delay—were chastised by a sentence of
immediate death. The expressions which issued the most readily from the
mouth of the emperor of the West were, "Strike off his head;" "Burn him
alive;" "Let him be beaten with clubs till he expires;" and his most
favored ministers soon understood, that, by a rash attempt to dispute, or
suspend, the execution of his sanguinary commands, they might involve
themselves in the guilt and punishment of disobedience. The repeated
gratification of this savage justice hardened the mind of Valentinian
against pity and remorse; and the sallies of passion were confirmed by the
habits of cruelty. He could behold with calm satisfaction the convulsive
agonies of torture and death; he reserved his friendship for those
faithful servants whose temper was the most congenial to his own. The
merit of Maximin, who had slaughtered the noblest families of Rome, was
rewarded with the royal approbation, and the præfecture of Gaul. Two
fierce and enormous bears, distinguished by the appellations of Innocence,
and Mica Aurea, could alone deserve to share the
favor of Maximin. The cages of those trusty guards were always placed near
the bed-chamber of Valentinian, who frequently amused his eyes with the
grateful spectacle of seeing them tear and devour the bleeding limbs of
the malefactors who were abandoned to their rage. Their diet and exercises
were carefully inspected by the Roman emperor; and when Innocence
had earned her discharge, by a long course of meritorious service, the
faithful animal was again restored to the freedom of her native woods.
But in the calmer moments of reflection, when the mind of Valens was not
agitated by fear, or that of Valentinian by rage, the tyrant resumed the
sentiments, or at least the conduct, of the father of his country. The
dispassionate judgment of the Western emperor could clearly perceive, and
accurately pursue, his own and the public interest; and the sovereign of
the East, who imitated with equal docility the various examples which he
received from his elder brother, was sometimes guided by the wisdom and
virtue of the præfect Sallust. Both princes invariably retained, in
the purple, the chaste and temperate simplicity which had adorned their
private life; and, under their reign, the pleasures of the court never
cost the people a blush or a sigh. They gradually reformed many of the
abuses of the times of Constantius; judiciously adopted and improved the
designs of Julian and his successor; and displayed a style and spirit of
legislation which might inspire posterity with the most favorable opinion
of their character and government. It is not from the master of Innocence,
that we should expect the tender regard for the welfare of his subjects,
which prompted Valentinian to condemn the exposition of new-born infants;
and to establish fourteen skilful physicians, with stipends and
privileges, in the fourteen quarters of Rome. The good sense of an
illiterate soldier founded a useful and liberal institution for the
education of youth, and the support of declining science. It was his
intention, that the arts of rhetoric and grammar should be taught in the
Greek and Latin languages, in the metropolis of every province; and as the
size and dignity of the school was usually proportioned to the importance
of the city, the academies of Rome and Constantinople claimed a just and
singular preeminence. The fragments of the literary edicts of Valentinian
imperfectly represent the school of Constantinople, which was gradually
improved by subsequent regulations. That school consisted of thirty-one
professors in different branches of learning. One philosopher, and two
lawyers; five sophists, and ten grammarians for the Greek, and three
orators, and ten grammarians for the Latin tongue; besides seven scribes,
or, as they were then styled, antiquarians, whose laborious pens supplied
the public library with fair and correct copies of the classic writers.
The rule of conduct, which was prescribed to the students, is the more
curious, as it affords the first outlines of the form and discipline of a
modern university. It was required, that they should bring proper
certificates from the magistrates of their native province. Their names,
professions, and places of abode, were regularly entered in a public
register. The studious youth were severely prohibited from wasting their
time in feasts, or in the theatre; and the term of their education was
limited to the age of twenty. The præfect of the city was empowered
to chastise the idle and refractory by stripes or expulsion; and he was
directed to make an annual report to the master of the offices, that the
knowledge and abilities of the scholars might be usefully applied to the
public service. The institutions of Valentinian contributed to secure the
benefits of peace and plenty; and the cities were guarded by the
establishment of the Defensors; freely elected
as the tribunes and advocates of the people, to support their rights, and
to expose their grievances, before the tribunals of the civil magistrates,
or even at the foot of the Imperial throne. The finances were diligently
administered by two princes, who had been so long accustomed to the rigid
economy of a private fortune; but in the receipt and application of the
revenue, a discerning eye might observe some difference between the
government of the East and of the West. Valens was persuaded, that royal
liberality can be supplied only by public oppression, and his ambition
never aspired to secure, by their actual distress, the future strength and
prosperity of his people. Instead of increasing the weight of taxes,
which, in the space of forty years, had been gradually doubled, he
reduced, in the first years of his reign, one fourth of the tribute of the
East. Valentinian appears to have been less attentive and less anxious to
relieve the burdens of his people. He might reform the abuses of the
fiscal administration; but he exacted, without scruple, a very large share
of the private property; as he was convinced, that the revenues, which
supported the luxury of individuals, would be much more advantageously
employed for the defence and improvement of the state. The subjects of the
East, who enjoyed the present benefit, applauded the indulgence of their
prince. The solid but less splendid, merit of Valentinian was felt and
acknowledged by the subsequent generation.
But the most honorable circumstance of the character of Valentinian, is
the firm and temperate impartiality which he uniformly preserved in an age
of religious contention. His strong sense, unenlightened, but uncorrupted,
by study, declined, with respectful indifference, the subtle questions of
theological debate. The government of the Earth
claimed his vigilance, and satisfied his ambition; and while he remembered
that he was the disciple of the church, he never forgot that he was the
sovereign of the clergy. Under the reign of an apostate, he had signalized
his zeal for the honor of Christianity: he allowed to his subjects the
privilege which he had assumed for himself; and they might accept, with
gratitude and confidence, the general toleration which was granted by a
prince addicted to passion, but incapable of fear or of disguise. The
Pagans, the Jews, and all the various sects which acknowledged the divine
authority of Christ, were protected by the laws from arbitrary power or
popular insult; nor was any mode of worship prohibited by Valentinian,
except those secret and criminal practices, which abused the name of
religion for the dark purposes of vice and disorder. The art of magic, as
it was more cruelly punished, was more strictly proscribed: but the
emperor admitted a formal distinction to protect the ancient methods of
divination, which were approved by the senate, and exercised by the Tuscan
haruspices. He had condemned, with the consent of the most rational
Pagans, the license of nocturnal sacrifices; but he immediately admitted
the petition of Prætextatus, proconsul of Achaia, who represented,
that the life of the Greeks would become dreary and comfortless, if they
were deprived of the invaluable blessing of the Eleusinian mysteries.
Philosophy alone can boast, (and perhaps it is no more than the boast of
philosophy,) that her gentle hand is able to eradicate from the human mind
the latent and deadly principle of fanaticism. But this truce of twelve
years, which was enforced by the wise and vigorous government of
Valentinian, by suspending the repetition of mutual injuries, contributed
to soften the manners, and abate the prejudices, of the religious
factions.
The friend of toleration was unfortunately placed at a distance from the
scene of the fiercest controversies. As soon as the Christians of the West
had extricated themselves from the snares of the creed of Rimini, they
happily relapsed into the slumber of orthodoxy; and the small remains of
the Arian party, that still subsisted at Sirmium or Milan, might be
considered rather as objects of contempt than of resentment. But in the
provinces of the East, from the Euxine to the extremity of Thebais, the
strength and numbers of the hostile factions were more equally balanced;
and this equality, instead of recommending the counsels of peace, served
only to perpetuate the horrors of religious war. The monks and bishops
supported their arguments by invectives; and their invectives were
sometimes followed by blows. Athanasius still reigned at Alexandria; the
thrones of Constantinople and Antioch were occupied by Arian prelates, and
every episcopal vacancy was the occasion of a popular tumult. The
Homoousians were fortified by the reconciliation of fifty-nine Macedonian,
or Semi-Arian, bishops; but their secret reluctance to embrace the
divinity of the Holy Ghost, clouded the splendor of the triumph; and the
declaration of Valens, who, in the first years of his reign, had imitated
the impartial conduct of his brother, was an important victory on the side
of Arianism. The two brothers had passed their private life in the
condition of catechumens; but the piety of Valens prompted him to solicit
the sacrament of baptism, before he exposed his person to the dangers of a
Gothic war. He naturally addressed himself to Eudoxus, * bishop of the
Imperial city; and if the ignorant monarch was instructed by that Arian
pastor in the principles of heterodox theology, his misfortune, rather
than his guilt, was the inevitable consequence of his erroneous choice.
Whatever had been the determination of the emperor, he must have offended
a numerous party of his Christian subjects; as the leaders both of the
Homoousians and of the Arians believed, that, if they were not suffered to
reign, they were most cruelly injured and oppressed. After he had taken
this decisive step, it was extremely difficult for him to preserve either
the virtue, or the reputation of impartiality. He never aspired, like
Constantius, to the fame of a profound theologian; but as he had received
with simplicity and respect the tenets of Eudoxus, Valens resigned his
conscience to the direction of his ecclesiastical guides, and promoted, by
the influence of his authority, the reunion of the Athanasian
heretics to the body of the Catholic church. At first, he
pitied their blindness; by degrees he was provoked at their obstinacy; and
he insensibly hated those sectaries to whom he was an object of hatred.
The feeble mind of Valens was always swayed by the persons with whom he
familiarly conversed; and the exile or imprisonment of a private citizen
are the favors the most readily granted in a despotic court. Such
punishments were frequently inflicted on the leaders of the Homoousian
party; and the misfortune of fourscore ecclesiastics of Constantinople,
who, perhaps accidentally, were burned on shipboard, was imputed to the
cruel and premeditated malice of the emperor, and his Arian ministers. In
every contest, the Catholics (if we may anticipate that name) were obliged
to pay the penalty of their own faults, and of those of their adversaries.
In every election, the claims of the Arian candidate obtained the
preference; and if they were opposed by the majority of the people, he was
usually supported by the authority of the civil magistrate, or even by the
terrors of a military force. The enemies of Athanasius attempted to
disturb the last years of his venerable age; and his temporary retreat to
his father's sepulchre has been celebrated as a fifth exile. But the zeal
of a great people, who instantly flew to arms, intimidated the præfect:
and the archbishop was permitted to end his life in peace and in glory,
after a reign of forty-seven years. The death of Athanasius was the signal
of the persecution of Egypt; and the Pagan minister of Valens, who
forcibly seated the worthless Lucius on the archiepiscopal throne,
purchased the favor of the reigning party, by the blood and sufferings of
their Christian brethren. The free toleration of the heathen and Jewish
worship was bitterly lamented, as a circumstance which aggravated the
misery of the Catholics, and the guilt of the impious tyrant of the East.
The triumph of the orthodox party has left a deep stain of persecution on
the memory of Valens; and the character of a prince who derived his
virtues, as well as his vices, from a feeble understanding and a
pusillanimous temper, scarcely deserves the labor of an apology. Yet
candor may discover some reasons to suspect that the ecclesiastical
ministers of Valens often exceeded the orders, or even the intentions, of
their master; and that the real measure of facts has been very liberally
magnified by the vehement declamation and easy credulity of his
antagonists. 1. The silence of Valentinian may suggest a
probable argument that the partial severities, which were exercised in the
name and provinces of his colleague, amounted only to some obscure and
inconsiderable deviations from the established system of religious
toleration: and the judicious historian, who has praised the equal temper
of the elder brother, has not thought himself obliged to contrast the
tranquillity of the West with the cruel persecution of the East. 2.
Whatever credit may be allowed to vague and distant reports, the
character, or at least the behavior, of Valens, may be most distinctly
seen in his personal transactions with the eloquent Basil, archbishop of Cæsarea,
who had succeeded Athanasius in the management of the Trinitarian cause.
The circumstantial narrative has been composed by the friends and admirers
of Basil; and as soon as we have stripped away a thick coat of rhetoric
and miracle, we shall be astonished by the unexpected mildness of the
Arian tyrant, who admired the firmness of his character, or was
apprehensive, if he employed violence, of a general revolt in the province
of Cappadocia. The archbishop, who asserted, with inflexible pride, the
truth of his opinions, and the dignity of his rank, was left in the free
possession of his conscience and his throne. The emperor devoutly assisted
at the solemn service of the cathedral; and, instead of a sentence of
banishment, subscribed the donation of a valuable estate for the use of a
hospital, which Basil had lately founded in the neighborhood of Cæsarea.
3. I am not able to discover, that any law (such as
Theodosius afterwards enacted against the Arians) was published by Valens
against the Athanasian sectaries; and the edict which excited the most
violent clamors, may not appear so extremely reprehensible. The emperor
had observed, that several of his subjects, gratifying their lazy
disposition under the pretence of religion, had associated themselves with
the monks of Egypt; and he directed the count of the East to drag them
from their solitude; and to compel these deserters of society to accept
the fair alternative of renouncing their temporal possessions, or of
discharging the public duties of men and citizens. The ministers of Valens
seem to have extended the sense of this penal statute, since they claimed
a right of enlisting the young and able-bodied monks in the Imperial
armies. A detachment of cavalry and infantry, consisting of three thousand
men, marched from Alexandria into the adjacent desert of Nitria, which was
peopled by five thousand monks. The soldiers were conducted by Arian
priests; and it is reported, that a considerable slaughter was made in the
monasteries which disobeyed the commands of their sovereign.
The strict regulations which have been framed by the wisdom of modern
legislators to restrain the wealth and avarice of the clergy, may be
originally deduced from the example of the emperor Valentinian. His edict,
addressed to Damasus, bishop of Rome, was publicly read in the churches of
the city. He admonished the ecclesiastics and monks not to frequent the
houses of widows and virgins; and menaced their disobedience with the
animadversion of the civil judge. The director was no longer permitted to
receive any gift, or legacy, or inheritance, from the liberality of his
spiritual-daughter: every testament contrary to this edict was declared
null and void; and the illegal donation was confiscated for the use of the
treasury. By a subsequent regulation, it should seem, that the same
provisions were extended to nuns and bishops; and that all persons of the
ecclesiastical order were rendered incapable of receiving any testamentary
gifts, and strictly confined to the natural and legal rights of
inheritance. As the guardian of domestic happiness and virtue, Valentinian
applied this severe remedy to the growing evil. In the capital of the
empire, the females of noble and opulent houses possessed a very ample
share of independent property: and many of those devout females had
embraced the doctrines of Christianity, not only with the cold assent of
the understanding, but with the warmth of affection, and perhaps with the
eagerness of fashion. They sacrificed the pleasures of dress and luxury;
and renounced, for the praise of chastity, the soft endearments of
conjugal society. Some ecclesiastic, of real or apparent sanctity, was
chosen to direct their timorous conscience, and to amuse the vacant
tenderness of their heart: and the unbounded confidence, which they
hastily bestowed, was often abused by knaves and enthusiasts; who hastened
from the extremities of the East, to enjoy, on a splendid theatre, the
privileges of the monastic profession. By their contempt of the world,
they insensibly acquired its most desirable advantages; the lively
attachment, perhaps of a young and beautiful woman, the delicate plenty of
an opulent household, and the respectful homage of the slaves, the
freedmen, and the clients of a senatorial family. The immense fortunes of
the Roman ladies were gradually consumed in lavish alms and expensive
pilgrimages; and the artful monk, who had assigned himself the first, or
possibly the sole place, in the testament of his spiritual daughter, still
presumed to declare, with the smooth face of hypocrisy, that he
was only the instrument of charity, and the steward of the poor. The
lucrative, but disgraceful, trade, which was exercised by the clergy to
defraud the expectations of the natural heirs, had provoked the
indignation of a superstitious age: and two of the most respectable of the
Latin fathers very honestly confess, that the ignominious edict of
Valentinian was just and necessary; and that the Christian priests had
deserved to lose a privilege, which was still enjoyed by comedians,
charioteers, and the ministers of idols. But the wisdom and authority of
the legislator are seldom victorious in a contest with the vigilant
dexterity of private interest; and Jerom, or Ambrose, might patiently
acquiesce in the justice of an ineffectual or salutary law. If the
ecclesiastics were checked in the pursuit of personal emolument, they
would exert a more laudable industry to increase the wealth of the church;
and dignify their covetousness with the specious names of piety and
patriotism.
Damasus, bishop of Rome, who was constrained to stigmatize the avarice of
his clergy by the publication of the law of Valentinian, had the good
sense, or the good fortune, to engage in his service the zeal and
abilities of the learned Jerom; and the grateful saint has celebrated the
merit and purity of a very ambiguous character. But the splendid vices of
the church of Rome, under the reign of Valentinian and Damasus, have been
curiously observed by the historian Ammianus, who delivers his impartial
sense in these expressive words: "The præfecture of Juventius was
accompanied with peace and plenty, but the tranquillity of his government
was soon disturbed by a bloody sedition of the distracted people. The
ardor of Damasus and Ursinus, to seize the episcopal seat, surpassed the
ordinary measure of human ambition. They contended with the rage of party;
the quarrel was maintained by the wounds and death of their followers; and
the præfect, unable to resist or appease the tumult, was
constrained, by superior violence, to retire into the suburbs. Damasus
prevailed: the well-disputed victory remained on the side of his faction;
one hundred and thirty-seven dead bodies were found in the Basilica
of Sicininus, where the Christians hold their religious assemblies; and it
was long before the angry minds of the people resumed their accustomed
tranquillity. When I consider the splendor of the capital, I am not
astonished that so valuable a prize should inflame the desires of
ambitious men, and produce the fiercest and most obstinate contests. The
successful candidate is secure, that he will be enriched by the offerings
of matrons; that, as soon as his dress is composed with becoming care and
elegance, he may proceed, in his chariot, through the streets of Rome; and
that the sumptuousness of the Imperial table will not equal the profuse
and delicate entertainments provided by the taste, and at the expense, of
the Roman pontiffs. How much more rationally (continues the honest Pagan)
would those pontiffs consult their true happiness, if, instead of alleging
the greatness of the city as an excuse for their manners, they would
imitate the exemplary life of some provincial bishops, whose temperance
and sobriety, whose mean apparel and downcast looks, recommend their pure
and modest virtue to the Deity and his true worshippers!" The schism of
Damasus and Ursinus was extinguished by the exile of the latter; and the
wisdom of the præfect Prætextatus restored the tranquillity of
the city. Prætextatus was a philosophic Pagan, a man of learning, of
taste, and politeness; who disguised a reproach in the form of a jest,
when he assured Damasus, that if he could obtain the bishopric of Rome, he
himself would immediately embrace the Christian religion. This lively
picture of the wealth and luxury of the popes in the fourth century
becomes the more curious, as it represents the intermediate degree between
the humble poverty of the apostolic fishermen, and the royal state of a
temporal prince, whose dominions extend from the confines of Naples to the
banks of the Po.
When the suffrage of the generals and of the army committed the sceptre of
the Roman empire to the hands of Valentinian, his reputation in arms, his
military skill and experience, and his rigid attachment to the forms, as
well as spirit, of ancient discipline, were the principal motives of their
judicious choice. The eagerness of the troops, who pressed him to nominate
his colleague, was justified by the dangerous situation of public affairs;
and Valentinian himself was conscious, that the abilities of the most
active mind were unequal to the defence of the distant frontiers of an
invaded monarchy. As soon as the death of Julian had relieved the
Barbarians from the terror of his name, the most sanguine hopes of rapine
and conquest excited the nations of the East, of the North, and of the
South. Their inroads were often vexatious, and sometimes formidable; but,
during the twelve years of the reign of Valentinian, his firmness and
vigilance protected his own dominions; and his powerful genius seemed to
inspire and direct the feeble counsels of his brother. Perhaps the method
of annals would more forcibly express the urgent and divided cares of the
two emperors; but the attention of the reader, likewise, would be
distracted by a tedious and desultory narrative. A separate view of the
five great theatres of war; I. Germany; II. Britain; III. Africa; IV. The
East; and, V. The Danube; will impress a more distinct image of the
military state of the empire under the reigns of Valentinian and Valens.
I. The ambassadors of the Alemanni had been offended by the harsh and
haughty behavior of Ursacius, master of the offices; who by an act of
unseasonable parsimony, had diminished the value, as well as the quantity,
of the presents to which they were entitled, either from custom or treaty,
on the accession of a new emperor. They expressed, and they communicated
to their countrymen, their strong sense of the national affront. The
irascible minds of the chiefs were exasperated by the suspicion of
contempt; and the martial youth crowded to their standard. Before
Valentinian could pass the Alps, the villages of Gaul were in flames;
before his general Degalaiphus could encounter the Alemanni, they had
secured the captives and the spoil in the forests of Germany. In the
beginning of the ensuing year, the military force of the whole nation, in
deep and solid columns, broke through the barrier of the Rhine, during the
severity of a northern winter. Two Roman counts were defeated and mortally
wounded; and the standard of the Heruli and Batavians fell into
the hands of the conquerors, who
displayed, with insulting shouts and menaces, the trophy of their victory.
The standard was recovered; but the Batavians had not redeemed the shame
of their disgrace and flight in the eyes of their severe judge. It was the
opinion of Valentinian, that his soldiers must learn to fear their
commander, before they could cease to fear the enemy. The troops were
solemnly assembled; and the trembling Batavians were enclosed within the
circle of the Imperial army. Valentinian then ascended his tribunal; and,
as if he disdained to punish cowardice with death, he inflicted a stain of
indelible ignominy on the officers, whose misconduct and pusillanimity
were found to be the first occasion of the defeat. The Batavians were
degraded from their rank, stripped of their arms, and condemned to be sold
for slaves to the highest bidder. At this tremendous sentence, the troops
fell prostrate on the ground, deprecated the indignation of their
sovereign, and protested, that, if he would indulge them in another trial,
they would approve themselves not unworthy of the name of Romans, and of
his soldiers. Valentinian, with affected reluctance, yielded to their
entreaties; the Batavians resumed their arms, and with their arms, the
invincible resolution of wiping away their disgrace in the blood of the
Alemanni. The principal command was declined by Dagalaiphus; and that
experienced general, who had represented, perhaps with too much prudence,
the extreme difficulties of the undertaking, had the mortification, before
the end of the campaign, of seeing his rival Jovinus convert those
difficulties into a decisive advantage over the scattered forces of the
Barbarians. At the head of a well-disciplined army of cavalry, infantry,
and light troops, Jovinus advanced, with cautious and rapid steps, to
Scarponna, * in the territory of Metz, where he surprised a large division
of the Alemanni, before they had time to run to their arms; and flushed
his soldiers with the confidence of an easy and bloodless victory. Another
division, or rather army, of the enemy, after the cruel and wanton
devastation of the adjacent country, reposed themselves on the shady banks
of the Moselle. Jovinus, who had viewed the ground with the eye of a
general, made a silent approach through a deep and woody vale, till he
could distinctly perceive the indolent security of the Germans. Some were
bathing their huge limbs in the river; others were combing their long and
flaxen hair; others again were swallowing large draughts of rich and
delicious wine. On a sudden they heard the sound of the Roman trumpet;
they saw the enemy in their camp. Astonishment produced disorder; disorder
was followed by flight and dismay; and the confused multitude of the
bravest warriors was pierced by the swords and javelins of the legionaries
and auxiliaries. The fugitives escaped to the third, and most
considerable, camp, in the Catalonian plains, near Chalons in Champagne:
the straggling detachments were hastily recalled to their standard; and
the Barbarian chiefs, alarmed and admonished by the fate of their
companions, prepared to encounter, in a decisive battle, the victorious
forces of the lieutenant of Valentinian. The bloody and obstinate conflict
lasted a whole summer's day, with equal valor, and with alternate success.
The Romans at length prevailed, with the loss of about twelve hundred men.
Six thousand of the Alemanni were slain, four thousand were wounded; and
the brave Jovinus, after chasing the flying remnant of their host as far
as the banks of the Rhine, returned to Paris, to receive the applause of
his sovereign, and the ensigns of the consulship for the ensuing year. The
triumph of the Romans was indeed sullied by their treatment of the captive
king, whom they hung on a gibbet, without the knowledge of their indignant
general. This disgraceful act of cruelty, which might be imputed to the
fury of the troops, was followed by the deliberate murder of Withicab, the
son of Vadomair; a German prince, of a weak and sickly constitution, but
of a daring and formidable spirit. The domestic assassin was instigated
and protected by the Romans; and the violation of the laws of humanity and
justice betrayed their secret apprehension of the weakness of the
declining empire. The use of the dagger is seldom adopted in public
councils, as long as they retain any confidence in the power of the sword.
While the Alemanni appeared to be humbled by their recent calamities, the
pride of Valentinian was mortified by the unexpected surprisal of
Moguntiacum, or Mentz, the principal city of the Upper Germany. In the
unsuspicious moment of a Christian festival, * Rando, a bold and artful
chieftain, who had long meditated his attempt, suddenly passed the Rhine;
entered the defenceless town, and retired with a multitude of captives of
either sex. Valentinian resolved to execute severe vengeance on the whole
body of the nation. Count Sebastian, with the bands of Italy and
Illyricum, was ordered to invade their country, most probably on the side
of Rhætia. The emperor in person, accompanied by his son Gratian,
passed the Rhine at the head of a formidable army, which was supported on
both flanks by Jovinus and Severus, the two masters-general of the cavalry
and infantry of the West. The Alemanni, unable to prevent the devastation
of their villages, fixed their camp on a lofty, and almost inaccessible,
mountain, in the modern duchy of Wirtemberg, and resolutely expected the
approach of the Romans. The life of Valentinian was exposed to imminent
danger by the intrepid curiosity with which he persisted to explore some
secret and unguarded path. A troop of Barbarians suddenly rose from their
ambuscade: and the emperor, who vigorously spurred his horse down a steep
and slippery descent, was obliged to leave behind him his armor-bearer,
and his helmet, magnificently enriched with gold and precious stones. At
the signal of the general assault, the Roman troops encompassed and
ascended the mountain of Solicinium on three different sides. Every step
which they gained, increased their ardor, and abated the resistance of the
enemy: and after their united forces had occupied the summit of the hill,
they impetuously urged the Barbarians down the northern descent, where
Count Sebastian was posted to intercept their retreat. After this signal
victory, Valentinian returned to his winter quarters at Treves; where he
indulged the public joy by the exhibition of splendid and triumphal games.
But the wise monarch, instead of aspiring to the conquest of Germany,
confined his attention to the important and laborious defence of the
Gallic frontier, against an enemy whose strength was renewed by a stream
of daring volunteers, which incessantly flowed from the most distant
tribes of the North. The banks of the Rhine from its source to the straits
of the ocean, were closely planted with strong castles and convenient
towers; new works, and new arms, were invented by the ingenuity of a
prince who was skilled in the mechanical arts; and his numerous levies of
Roman and Barbarian youth were severely trained in all the exercises of
war. The progress of the work, which was sometimes opposed by modest
representations, and sometimes by hostile attempts, secured the
tranquillity of Gaul during the nine subsequent years of the
administration of Valentinian.
That prudent emperor, who diligently practised the wise maxims of
Diocletian, was studious to foment and excite the intestine divisions of
the tribes of Germany. About the middle of the fourth century, the
countries, perhaps of Lusace and Thuringia, on either side of the Elbe,
were occupied by the vague dominion of the Burgundians; a warlike and
numerous people, * of the Vandal race, whose obscure name insensibly
swelled into a powerful kingdom, and has finally settled on a flourishing
province. The most remarkable circumstance in the ancient manners of the
Burgundians appears to have been the difference of their civil and
ecclesiastical constitution. The appellation of Hendinos
was given to the king or general, and the title of Sinistus
to the high priest, of the nation. The person of the priest was sacred,
and his dignity perpetual; but the temporal government was held by a very
precarious tenure. If the events of war accuses the courage or conduct of
the king, he was immediately deposed; and the injustice of his subjects
made him responsible for the fertility of the earth, and the regularity of
the seasons, which seemed to fall more properly within the sacerdotal
department. The disputed possession of some salt-pits engaged the Alemanni
and the Burgundians in frequent contests: the latter were easily tempted,
by the secret solicitations and liberal offers of the emperor; and their
fabulous descent from the Roman soldiers, who had formerly been left to
garrison the fortresses of Drusus, was admitted with mutual credulity, as
it was conducive to mutual interest. An army of fourscore thousand
Burgundians soon appeared on the banks of the Rhine; and impatiently
required the support and subsidies which Valentinian had promised: but
they were amused with excuses and delays, till at length, after a
fruitless expectation, they were compelled to retire. The arms and
fortifications of the Gallic frontier checked the fury of their just
resentment; and their massacre of the captives served to imbitter the
hereditary feud of the Burgundians and the Alemanni. The inconstancy of a
wise prince may, perhaps, be explained by some alteration of
circumstances; and perhaps it was the original design of Valentinian to
intimidate, rather than to destroy; as the balance of power would have
been equally overturned by the extirpation of either of the German
nations. Among the princes of the Alemanni, Macrianus, who, with a Roman
name, had assumed the arts of a soldier and a statesman, deserved his
hatred and esteem. The emperor himself, with a light and unencumbered
band, condescended to pass the Rhine, marched fifty miles into the
country, and would infallibly have seized the object of his pursuit, if
his judicious measures had not been defeated by the impatience of the
troops. Macrianus was afterwards admitted to the honor of a personal
conference with the emperor; and the favors which he received, fixed him,
till the hour of his death, a steady and sincere friend of the republic.
The land was covered by the fortifications of Valentinian; but the
sea-coast of Gaul and Britain was exposed to the depredations of the
Saxons. That celebrated name, in which we have a dear and domestic
interest, escaped the notice of Tacitus; and in the maps of Ptolemy, it
faintly marks the narrow neck of the Cimbric peninsula, and three small
islands towards the mouth of the Elbe. This contracted territory, the
present duchy of Sleswig, or perhaps of Holstein, was incapable of pouring
forth the inexhaustible swarms of Saxons who reigned over the ocean, who
filled the British island with their language, their laws, and their
colonies; and who so long defended the liberty of the North against the
arms of Charlemagne. The solution of this difficulty is easily derived
from the similar manners, and loose constitution, of the tribes of
Germany; which were blended with each other by the slightest accidents of
war or friendship. The situation of the native Saxons disposed them to
embrace the hazardous professions of fishermen and pirates; and the
success of their first adventures would naturally excite the emulation of
their bravest countrymen, who were impatient of the gloomy solitude of
their woods and mountains. Every tide might float down the Elbe whole
fleets of canoes, filled with hardy and intrepid associates, who aspired
to behold the unbounded prospect of the ocean, and to taste the wealth and
luxury of unknown worlds. It should seem probable, however, that the most
numerous auxiliaries of the Saxons were furnished by the nations who dwelt
along the shores of the Baltic. They possessed arms and ships, the art of
navigation, and the habits of naval war; but the difficulty of issuing
through the northern columns of Hercules (which, during several months of
the year, are obstructed with ice) confined their skill and courage within
the limits of a spacious lake. The rumor of the successful armaments which
sailed from the mouth of the Elbe, would soon provoke them to cross the
narrow isthmus of Sleswig, and to launch their vessels on the great sea.
The various troops of pirates and adventurers, who fought under the same
standard, were insensibly united in a permanent society, at first of
rapine, and afterwards of government. A military confederation was
gradually moulded into a national body, by the gentle operation of
marriage and consanguinity; and the adjacent tribes, who solicited the
alliance, accepted the name and laws, of the Saxons. If the fact were not
established by the most unquestionable evidence, we should appear to abuse
the credulity of our readers, by the description of the vessels in which
the Saxon pirates ventured to sport in the waves of the German Ocean, the
British Channel, and the Bay of Biscay. The keel of their large
flat-bottomed boats were framed of light timber, but the sides and upper
works consisted only of wicker, with a covering of strong hides. In the
course of their slow and distant navigations, they must always have been
exposed to the danger, and very frequently to the misfortune, of
shipwreck; and the naval annals of the Saxons were undoubtedly filled with
the accounts of the losses which they sustained on the coasts of Britain
and Gaul. But the daring spirit of the pirates braved the perils both of
the sea and of the shore: their skill was confirmed by the habits of
enterprise; the meanest of their mariners was alike capable of handling an
oar, of rearing a sail, or of conducting a vessel, and the Saxons rejoiced
in the appearance of a tempest, which concealed their design, and
dispersed the fleets of the enemy. After they had acquired an accurate
knowledge of the maritime provinces of the West, they extended the scene
of their depredations, and the most sequestered places had no reason to
presume on their security. The Saxon boats drew so little water that they
could easily proceed fourscore or a hundred miles up the great rivers;
their weight was so inconsiderable, that they were transported on wagons
from one river to another; and the pirates who had entered the mouth of
the Seine, or of the Rhine, might descend, with the rapid stream of the
Rhone, into the Mediterranean. Under the reign of Valentinian, the
maritime provinces of Gaul were afflicted by the Saxons: a military count
was stationed for the defence of the sea-coast, or Armorican limit; and
that officer, who found his strength, or his abilities, unequal to the
task, implored the assistance of Severus, master-general of the infantry.
The Saxons, surrounded and outnumbered, were forced to relinquish their
spoil, and to yield a select band of their tall and robust youth to serve
in the Imperial armies. They stipulated only a safe and honorable retreat;
and the condition was readily granted by the Roman general, who meditated
an act of perfidy, imprudent as it was inhuman, while a Saxon remained
alive, and in arms, to revenge the fate of their countrymen. The premature
eagerness of the infantry, who were secretly posted in a deep valley,
betrayed the ambuscade; and they would perhaps have fallen the victims of
their own treachery, if a large body of cuirassiers, alarmed by the noise
of the combat, had not hastily advanced to extricate their companions, and
to overwhelm the undaunted valor of the Saxons. Some of the prisoners were
saved from the edge of the sword, to shed their blood in the amphitheatre;
and the orator Symmachus complains, that twenty-nine of those desperate
savages, by strangling themselves with their own hands, had disappointed
the amusement of the public. Yet the polite and philosophic citizens of
Rome were impressed with the deepest horror, when they were informed, that
the Saxons consecrated to the gods the tithe of their human
spoil; and that they ascertained by lot the objects of the barbarous
sacrifice.
II. The fabulous colonies of Egyptians and Trojans, of Scandinavians and
Spaniards, which flattered the pride, and amused the credulity, of our
rude ancestors, have insensibly vanished in the light of science and
philosophy. The present age is satisfied with the simple and rational
opinion, that the islands of Great Britain and Ireland were gradually
peopled from the adjacent continent of Gaul. From the coast of Kent, to
the extremity of Caithness and Ulster, the memory of a Celtic origin was
distinctly preserved, in the perpetual resemblance of language, of
religion, and of manners; and the peculiar characters of the British
tribes might be naturally ascribed to the influence of accidental and
local circumstances. The Roman Province was reduced to the state of
civilized and peaceful servitude; the rights of savage freedom were
contracted to the narrow limits of Caledonia. The inhabitants of that
northern region were divided, as early as the reign of Constantine,
between the two great tribes of the Scots and of the Picts, who have since
experienced a very different fortune. The power, and almost the memory, of
the Picts have been extinguished by their successful rivals; and the
Scots, after maintaining for ages the dignity of an independent kingdom,
have multiplied, by an equal and voluntary union, the honors of the
English name. The hand of nature had contributed to mark the ancient
distinctions of the Scots and Picts. The former were the men of the hills,
and the latter those of the plain. The eastern coast of Caledonia may be
considered as a level and fertile country, which, even in a rude state of
tillage, was capable of producing a considerable quantity of corn; and the
epithet of cruitnich, or wheat-eaters, expressed
the contempt or envy of the carnivorous highlander. The cultivation of the
earth might introduce a more accurate separation of property, and the
habits of a sedentary life; but the love of arms and rapine was still the
ruling passion of the Picts; and their warriors, who stripped themselves
for a day of battle, were distinguished, in the eyes of the Romans, by the
strange fashion of painting their naked bodies with gaudy colors and
fantastic figures. The western part of Caledonia irregularly rises into
wild and barren hills, which scarcely repay the toil of the husbandman,
and are most profitably used for the pasture of cattle. The highlanders
were condemned to the occupations of shepherds and hunters; and, as they
seldom were fixed to any permanent habitation, they acquired the
expressive name of Scots, which, in the Celtic tongue, is said to be
equivalent to that of wanderers, or vagrants.
The inhabitants of a barren land were urged to seek a fresh supply of food
in the waters. The deep lakes and bays which intersect their country, are
plentifully supplied with fish; and they gradually ventured to cast their
nets in the waves of the ocean. The vicinity of the Hebrides, so profusely
scattered along the western coast of Scotland, tempted their curiosity,
and improved their skill; and they acquired, by slow degrees, the art, or
rather the habit, of managing their boats in a tempestuous sea, and of
steering their nocturnal course by the light of the well-known stars. The
two bold headlands of Caledonia almost touch the shores of a spacious
island, which obtained, from its luxuriant vegetation, the epithet of
Green; and has preserved, with a slight
alteration, the name of Erin, or Ierne, or Ireland. It is probable,
that in some remote period of antiquity, the fertile plains of Ulster
received a colony of hungry Scots; and that the strangers of the North,
who had dared to encounter the arms of the legions, spread their conquests
over the savage and unwarlike natives of a solitary island. It is certain,
that, in the declining age of the Roman empire, Caledonia, Ireland, and
the Isle of Man, were inhabited by the Scots, and that the kindred tribes,
who were often associated in military enterprise, were deeply affected by
the various accidents of their mutual fortunes. They long cherished the
lively tradition of their common name and origin; and the missionaries of
the Isle of Saints, who diffused the light of Christianity over North
Britain, established the vain opinion, that their Irish countrymen were
the natural, as well as spiritual, fathers of the Scottish race. The loose
and obscure tradition has been preserved by the venerable Bede, who
scattered some rays of light over the darkness of the eighth century. On
this slight foundation, a huge superstructure of fable was gradually
reared, by the bards and the monks; two orders of men, who equally abused
the privilege of fiction. The Scottish nation, with mistaken pride,
adopted their Irish genealogy; and the annals of a long line of imaginary
kings have been adorned by the fancy of Boethius, and the classic elegance
of Buchanan.
Six years after the death of Constantine, the destructive inroads of the
Scots and Picts required the presence of his youngest son, who reigned in
the Western empire. Constans visited his British dominions: but we may
form some estimate of the importance of his achievements, by the language
of panegyric, which celebrates only his triumph over the elements or, in
other words, the good fortune of a safe and easy passage from the port of
Boulogne to the harbor of Sandwich. The calamities which the afflicted
provincials continued to experience, from foreign war and domestic
tyranny, were aggravated by the feeble and corrupt administration of the
eunuchs of Constantius; and the transient relief which they might obtain
from the virtues of Julian, was soon lost by the absence and death of
their benefactor. The sums of gold and silver, which had been painfully
collected, or liberally transmitted, for the payment of the troops, were
intercepted by the avarice of the commanders; discharges, or, at least,
exemptions, from the military service, were publicly sold; the distress of
the soldiers, who were injuriously deprived of their legal and scanty
subsistence, provoked them to frequent desertion; the nerves of discipline
were relaxed, and the highways were infested with robbers. The oppression
of the good, and the impunity of the wicked, equally contributed to
diffuse through the island a spirit of discontent and revolt; and every
ambitious subject, every desperate exile, might entertain a reasonable
hope of subverting the weak and distracted government of Britain. The
hostile tribes of the North, who detested the pride and power of the King
of the World, suspended their domestic feuds; and the Barbarians of the
land and sea, the Scots, the Picts, and the Saxons, spread themselves with
rapid and irresistible fury, from the wall of Antoninus to the shores of
Kent. Every production of art and nature, every object of convenience and
luxury, which they were incapable of creating by labor or procuring by
trade, was accumulated in the rich and fruitful province of Britain. A
philosopher may deplore the eternal discords of the human race, but he
will confess, that the desire of spoil is a more rational provocation than
the vanity of conquest. From the age of Constantine to the Plantagenets,
this rapacious spirit continued to instigate the poor and hardy
Caledonians; but the same people, whose generous humanity seems to inspire
the songs of Ossian, was disgraced by a savage ignorance of the virtues of
peace, and of the laws of war. Their southern neighbors have felt, and
perhaps exaggerated, the cruel depredations of the Scots and Picts; and a
valiant tribe of Caledonia, the Attacotti, the enemies, and afterwards the
soldiers, of Valentinian, are accused, by an eye-witness, of delighting in
the taste of human flesh. When they hunted the woods for prey, it is said,
that they attacked the shepherd rather than his flock; and that they
curiously selected the most delicate and brawny parts, both of males and
females, which they prepared for their horrid repasts. If, in the
neighborhood of the commercial and literary town of Glasgow, a race of
cannibals has really existed, we may contemplate, in the period of the
Scottish history, the opposite extremes of savage and civilized life. Such
reflections tend to enlarge the circle of our ideas; and to encourage the
pleasing hope, that New Zealand may produce, in some future age, the Hume
of the Southern Hemisphere.
Every messenger who escaped across the British Channel, conveyed the most
melancholy and alarming tidings to the ears of Valentinian; and the
emperor was soon informed that the two military commanders of the province
had been surprised and cut off by the Barbarians. Severus, count of the
domestics, was hastily despatched, and as suddenly recalled, by the court
of Treves. The representations of Jovinus served only to indicate the
greatness of the evil; and, after a long and serious consultation, the
defence, or rather the recovery, of Britain was intrusted to the abilities
of the brave Theodosius. The exploits of that general, the father of a
line of emperors, have been celebrated, with peculiar complacency, by the
writers of the age: but his real merit deserved their applause; and his
nomination was received, by the army and province, as a sure presage of
approaching victory. He seized the favorable moment of navigation, and
securely landed the numerous and veteran bands of the Heruli and
Batavians, the Jovians and the Victors. In his march from Sandwich to
London, Theodosius defeated several parties of the Barbarians, released a
multitude of captives, and, after distributing to his soldiers a small
portion of the spoil, established the fame of disinterested justice, by
the restitution of the remainder to the rightful proprietors. The citizens
of London, who had almost despaired of their safety, threw open their
gates; and as soon as Theodosius had obtained from the court of Treves the
important aid of a military lieutenant, and a civil governor, he executed,
with wisdom and vigor, the laborious task of the deliverance of Britain.
The vagrant soldiers were recalled to their standard; an edict of amnesty
dispelled the public apprehensions; and his cheerful example alleviated
the rigor of martial discipline. The scattered and desultory warfare of
the Barbarians, who infested the land and sea, deprived him of the glory
of a signal victory; but the prudent spirit, and consummate art, of the
Roman general, were displayed in the operations of two campaigns, which
successively rescued every part of the province from the hands of a cruel
and rapacious enemy. The splendor of the cities, and the security of the
fortifications, were diligently restored, by the paternal care of
Theodosius; who with a strong hand confined the trembling Caledonians to
the northern angle of the island; and perpetuated, by the name and
settlement of the new province of Valentia, the
glories of the reign of Valentinian. The voice of poetry and panegyric may
add, perhaps with some degree of truth, that the unknown regions of Thule
were stained with the blood of the Picts; that the oars of Theodosius
dashed the waves of the Hyperborean ocean; and that the distant Orkneys
were the scene of his naval victory over the Saxon pirates. He left the
province with a fair, as well as splendid, reputation; and was immediately
promoted to the rank of master-general of the cavalry, by a prince who
could applaud, without envy, the merit of his servants. In the important
station of the Upper Danube, the conqueror of Britain checked and defeated
the armies of the Alemanni, before he was chosen to suppress the revolt of
Africa.
III. The prince who refuses to be the judge, instructs the people to
consider him as the accomplice, of his ministers. The military command of
Africa had been long exercised by Count Romanus, and his abilities were
not inadequate to his station; but, as sordid interest was the sole motive
of his conduct, he acted, on most occasions, as if he had been the enemy
of the province, and the friend of the Barbarians of the desert. The three
flourishing cities of Oea, Leptis, and Sabrata, which, under the name of
Tripoli, had long constituted a federal union, were obliged, for the first
time, to shut their gates against a hostile invasion; several of their
most honorable citizens were surprised and massacred; the villages, and
even the suburbs, were pillaged; and the vines and fruit trees of that
rich territory were extirpated by the malicious savages of Getulia. The
unhappy provincials implored the protection of Romanus; but they soon
found that their military governor was not less cruel and rapacious than
the Barbarians. As they were incapable of furnishing the four thousand
camels, and the exorbitant present, which he required, before he would
march to the assistance of Tripoli; his demand was equivalent to a
refusal, and he might justly be accused as the author of the public
calamity. In the annual assembly of the three cities, they nominated two
deputies, to lay at the feet of Valentinian the customary offering of a
gold victory; and to accompany this tribute of duty, rather than of
gratitude, with their humble complaint, that they were ruined by the
enemy, and betrayed by their governor. If the severity of Valentinian had
been rightly directed, it would have fallen on the guilty head of Romanus.
But the count, long exercised in the arts of corruption, had despatched a
swift and trusty messenger to secure the venal friendship of Remigius,
master of the offices. The wisdom of the Imperial council was deceived by
artifice; and their honest indignation was cooled by delay. At length,
when the repetition of complaint had been justified by the repetition of
public misfortunes, the notary Palladius was sent from the court of
Treves, to examine the state of Africa, and the conduct of Romanus. The
rigid impartiality of Palladius was easily disarmed: he was tempted to
reserve for himself a part of the public treasure, which he brought with
him for the payment of the troops; and from the moment that he was
conscious of his own guilt, he could no longer refuse to attest the
innocence and merit of the count. The charge of the Tripolitans was
declared to be false and frivolous; and Palladius himself was sent back
from Treves to Africa, with a special commission to discover and prosecute
the authors of this impious conspiracy against the representatives of the
sovereign. His inquiries were managed with so much dexterity and success,
that he compelled the citizens of Leptis, who had sustained a recent siege
of eight days, to contradict the truth of their own decrees, and to
censure the behavior of their own deputies. A bloody sentence was
pronounced, without hesitation, by the rash and headstrong cruelty of
Valentinian. The president of Tripoli, who had presumed to pity the
distress of the province, was publicly executed at Utica; four
distinguished citizens were put to death, as the accomplices of the
imaginary fraud; and the tongues of two others were cut out, by the
express order of the emperor. Romanus, elated by impunity, and irritated
by resistance, was still continued in the military command; till the
Africans were provoked, by his avarice, to join the rebellious standard of
Firmus, the Moor.
His father Nabal was one of the richest and most powerful of the Moorish
princes, who acknowledged the supremacy of Rome. But as he left, either by
his wives or concubines, a very numerous posterity, the wealthy
inheritance was eagerly disputed; and Zamma, one of his sons, was slain in
a domestic quarrel by his brother Firmus. The implacable zeal, with which
Romanus prosecuted the legal revenge of this murder, could be ascribed
only to a motive of avarice, or personal hatred; but, on this occasion,
his claims were just; his influence was weighty; and Firmus clearly
understood, that he must either present his neck to the executioner, or
appeal from the sentence of the Imperial consistory, to his sword, and to
the people. He was received as the deliverer of his country; and, as soon
as it appeared that Romanus was formidable only to a submissive province,
the tyrant of Africa became the object of universal contempt. The ruin of
Cæsarea, which was plundered and burnt by the licentious Barbarians,
convinced the refractory cities of the danger of resistance; the power of
Firmus was established, at least in the provinces of Mauritania and
Numidia; and it seemed to be his only doubt whether he should assume the
diadem of a Moorish king, or the purple of a Roman emperor. But the
imprudent and unhappy Africans soon discovered, that, in this rash
insurrection, they had not sufficiently consulted their own strength, or
the abilities of their leader. Before he could procure any certain
intelligence, that the emperor of the West had fixed the choice of a
general, or that a fleet of transports was collected at the mouth of the
Rhone, he was suddenly informed that the great Theodosius, with a small
band of veterans, had landed near Igilgilis, or Gigeri, on the African
coast; and the timid usurper sunk under the ascendant of virtue and
military genius. Though Firmus possessed arms and treasures, his despair
of victory immediately reduced him to the use of those arts, which, in the
same country, and in a similar situation, had formerly been practised by
the crafty Jugurtha. He attempted to deceive, by an apparent submission,
the vigilance of the Roman general; to seduce the fidelity of his troops;
and to protract the duration of the war, by successively engaging the
independent tribes of Africa to espouse his quarrel, or to protect his
flight. Theodosius imitated the example, and obtained the success, of his
predecessor Metellus. When Firmus, in the character of a suppliant,
accused his own rashness, and humbly solicited the clemency of the
emperor, the lieutenant of Valentinian received and dismissed him with a
friendly embrace: but he diligently required the useful and substantial
pledges of a sincere repentance; nor could he be persuaded, by the
assurances of peace, to suspend, for an instant, the operations of an
active war. A dark conspiracy was detected by the penetration of
Theodosius; and he satisfied, without much reluctance, the public
indignation, which he had secretly excited. Several of the guilty
accomplices of Firmus were abandoned, according to ancient custom, to the
tumult of a military execution; many more, by the amputation of both their
hands, continued to exhibit an instructive spectacle of horror; the hatred
of the rebels was accompanied with fear; and the fear of the Roman
soldiers was mingled with respectful admiration. Amidst the boundless
plains of Getulia, and the innumerable valleys of Mount Atlas, it was
impossible to prevent the escape of Firmus; and if the usurper could have
tired the patience of his antagonist, he would have secured his person in
the depth of some remote solitude, and expected the hopes of a future
revolution. He was subdued by the perseverance of Theodosius; who had
formed an inflexible determination, that the war should end only by the
death of the tyrant; and that every nation of Africa, which presumed to
support his cause, should be involved in his ruin. At the head of a small
body of troops, which seldom exceeded three thousand five hundred men, the
Roman general advanced, with a steady prudence, devoid of rashness or of
fear, into the heart of a country, where he was sometimes attacked by
armies of twenty thousand Moors. The boldness of his charge dismayed the
irregular Barbarians; they were disconcerted by his seasonable and orderly
retreats; they were continually baffled by the unknown resources of the
military art; and they felt and confessed the just superiority which was
assumed by the leader of a civilized nation. When Theodosius entered the
extensive dominions of Igmazen, king of the Isaflenses, the haughty savage
required, in words of defiance, his name, and the object of his
expedition. "I am," replied the stern and disdainful count, "I am the
general of Valentinian, the lord of the world; who has sent me hither to
pursue and punish a desperate robber. Deliver him instantly into my hands;
and be assured, that if thou dost not obey the commands of my invincible
sovereign, thou, and the people over whom thou reignest, shall be utterly
extirpated." * As soon as Igmazen was satisfied, that his enemy had
strength and resolution to execute the fatal menace, he consented to
purchase a necessary peace by the sacrifice of a guilty fugitive. The
guards that were placed to secure the person of Firmus deprived him of the
hopes of escape; and the Moorish tyrant, after wine had extinguished the
sense of danger, disappointed the insulting triumph of the Romans, by
strangling himself in the night. His dead body, the only present which
Igmazen could offer to the conqueror, was carelessly thrown upon a camel;
and Theodosius, leading back his victorious troops to Sitifi, was saluted
by the warmest acclamations of joy and loyalty.
Africa had been lost by the vices of Romanus; it was restored by the
virtues of Theodosius; and our curiosity may be usefully directed to the
inquiry of the respective treatment which the two generals received from
the Imperial court. The authority of Count Romanus had been suspended by
the master-general of the cavalry; and he was committed to safe and
honorable custody till the end of the war. His crimes were proved by the
most authentic evidence; and the public expected, with some impatience,
the decree of severe justice. But the partial and powerful favor of
Mellobaudes encouraged him to challenge his legal judges, to obtain
repeated delays for the purpose of procuring a crowd of friendly
witnesses, and, finally, to cover his guilty conduct, by the additional
guilt of fraud and forgery. About the same time, the restorer of Britain
and Africa, on a vague suspicion that his name and services were superior
to the rank of a subject, was ignominiously beheaded at Carthage.
Valentinian no longer reigned; and the death of Theodosius, as well as the
impunity of Romanus, may justly be imputed to the arts of the ministers,
who abused the confidence, and deceived the inexperienced youth, of his
sons.
If the geographical accuracy of Ammianus had been fortunately bestowed on
the British exploits of Theodosius, we should have traced, with eager
curiosity, the distinct and domestic footsteps of his march. But the
tedious enumeration of the unknown and uninteresting tribes of Africa may
be reduced to the general remark, that they were all of the swarthy race
of the Moors; that they inhabited the back settlements of the Mauritanian
and Numidian province, the country, as they have since been termed by the
Arabs, of dates and of locusts; and that, as the Roman power declined in
Africa, the boundary of civilized manners and cultivated land was
insensibly contracted. Beyond the utmost limits of the Moors, the vast and
inhospitable desert of the South extends above a thousand miles to the
banks of the Niger. The ancients, who had a very faint and imperfect
knowledge of the great peninsula of Africa, were sometimes tempted to
believe, that the torrid zone must ever remain destitute of inhabitants;
and they sometimes amused their fancy by filling the vacant space with
headless men, or rather monsters; with horned and cloven-footed satyrs;
with fabulous centaurs; and with human pygmies, who waged a bold and
doubtful warfare against the cranes. Carthage would have trembled at the
strange intelligence that the countries on either side of the equator were
filled with innumerable nations, who differed only in their color from the
ordinary appearance of the human species: and the subjects of the Roman
empire might have anxiously expected, that the swarms of Barbarians, which
issued from the North, would soon be encountered from the South by new
swarms of Barbarians, equally fierce and equally formidable. These gloomy
terrors would indeed have been dispelled by a more intimate acquaintance
with the character of their African enemies. The inaction of the negroes
does not seem to be the effect either of their virtue or of their
pusillanimity. They indulge, like the rest of mankind, their passions and
appetites; and the adjacent tribes are engaged in frequent acts of
hostility. But their rude ignorance has never invented any effectual
weapons of defence, or of destruction; they appear incapable of forming
any extensive plans of government, or conquest; and the obvious
inferiority of their mental faculties has been discovered and abused by
the nations of the temperate zone. Sixty thousand blacks are annually
embarked from the coast of Guinea, never to return to their native
country; but they are embarked in chains; and this constant emigration,
which, in the space of two centuries, might have furnished armies to
overrun the globe, accuses the guilt of Europe, and the weakness of
Africa.
IV. The ignominious treaty, which saved the army of Jovian, had been
faithfully executed on the side of the Romans; and as they had solemnly
renounced the sovereignty and alliance of Armenia and Iberia, those
tributary kingdoms were exposed, without protection, to the arms of the
Persian monarch. Sapor entered the Armenian territories at the head of a
formidable host of cuirassiers, of archers, and of mercenary foot; but it
was the invariable practice of Sapor to mix war and negotiation, and to
consider falsehood and perjury as the most powerful instruments of regal
policy. He affected to praise the prudent and moderate conduct of the king
of Armenia; and the unsuspicious Tiranus was persuaded, by the repeated
assurances of insidious friendship, to deliver his person into the hands
of a faithless and cruel enemy. In the midst of a splendid entertainment,
he was bound in chains of silver, as an honor due to the blood of the
Arsacides; and, after a short confinement in the Tower of Oblivion at
Ecbatana, he was released from the miseries of life, either by his own
dagger, or by that of an assassin. * The kingdom of Armenia was reduced to
the state of a Persian province; the administration was shared between a
distinguished satrap and a favorite eunuch; and Sapor marched, without
delay, to subdue the martial spirit of the Iberians. Sauromaces, who
reigned in that country by the permission of the emperors, was expelled by
a superior force; and, as an insult on the majesty of Rome, the king of
kings placed a diadem on the head of his abject vassal Aspacuras. The city
of Artogerassa was the only place of Armenia which presumed to resist the
efforts of his arms. The treasure deposited in that strong fortress
tempted the avarice of Sapor; but the danger of Olympias, the wife or
widow of the Armenian king, excited the public compassion, and animated
the desperate valor of her subjects and soldiers. § The Persians were
surprised and repulsed under the walls of Artogerassa, by a bold and
well-concerted sally of the besieged. But the forces of Sapor were
continually renewed and increased; the hopeless courage of the garrison
was exhausted; the strength of the walls yielded to the assault; and the
proud conqueror, after wasting the rebellious city with fire and sword,
led away captive an unfortunate queen; who, in a more auspicious hour, had
been the destined bride of the son of Constantine. Yet if Sapor already
triumphed in the easy conquest of two dependent kingdoms, he soon felt,
that a country is unsubdued as long as the minds of the people are
actuated by a hostile and contumacious spirit. The satraps, whom he was
obliged to trust, embraced the first opportunity of regaining the
affection of their countrymen, and of signalizing their immortal hatred to
the Persian name. Since the conversion of the Armenians and Iberians,
these nations considered the Christians as the favorites, and the Magians
as the adversaries, of the Supreme Being: the influence of the clergy,
over a superstitious people was uniformly exerted in the cause of Rome;
and as long as the successors of Constantine disputed with those of
Artaxerxes the sovereignty of the intermediate provinces, the religious
connection always threw a decisive advantage into the scale of the empire.
A numerous and active party acknowledged Para, the son of Tiranus, as the
lawful sovereign of Armenia, and his title to the throne was deeply rooted
in the hereditary succession of five hundred years. By the unanimous
consent of the Iberians, the country was equally divided between the rival
princes; and Aspacuras, who owed his diadem to the choice of Sapor, was
obliged to declare, that his regard for his children, who were detained as
hostages by the tyrant, was the only consideration which prevented him
from openly renouncing the alliance of Persia. The emperor Valens, who
respected the obligations of the treaty, and who was apprehensive of
involving the East in a dangerous war, ventured, with slow and cautious
measures, to support the Roman party in the kingdoms of Iberia and
Armenia. $ Twelve legions established the authority of Sauromaces on the
banks of the Cyrus. The Euphrates was protected by the valor of Arintheus.
A powerful army, under the command of Count Trajan, and of Vadomair, king
of the Alemanni, fixed their camp on the confines of Armenia. But they
were strictly enjoined not to commit the first hostilities, which might be
understood as a breach of the treaty: and such was the implicit obedience
of the Roman general, that they retreated, with exemplary patience, under
a shower of Persian arrows till they had clearly acquired a just title to
an honorable and legitimate victory. Yet these appearances of war
insensibly subsided in a vain and tedious negotiation. The contending
parties supported their claims by mutual reproaches of perfidy and
ambition; and it should seem, that the original treaty was expressed in
very obscure terms, since they were reduced to the necessity of making
their inconclusive appeal to the partial testimony of the generals of the
two nations, who had assisted at the negotiations. The invasion of the
Goths and Huns which soon afterwards shook the foundations of the Roman
empire, exposed the provinces of Asia to the arms of Sapor. But the
declining age, and perhaps the infirmities, of the monarch suggested new
maxims of tranquillity and moderation. His death, which happened in the
full maturity of a reign of seventy years, changed in a moment the court
and councils of Persia; and their attention was most probably engaged by
domestic troubles, and the distant efforts of a Carmanian war. The
remembrance of ancient injuries was lost in the enjoyment of peace. The
kingdoms of Armenia and Iberia were permitted, by the mutual, though tacit
consent of both empires, to resume their doubtful neutrality. In the first
years of the reign of Theodosius, a Persian embassy arrived at
Constantinople, to excuse the unjustifiable measures of the former reign;
and to offer, as the tribute of friendship, or even of respect, a splendid
present of gems, of silk, and of Indian elephants.
In the general picture of the affairs of the East under the reign of
Valens, the adventures of Para form one of the most striking and singular
objects. The noble youth, by the persuasion of his mother Olympias, had
escaped through the Persian host that besieged Artogerassa, and implored
the protection of the emperor of the East. By his timid councils, Para was
alternately supported, and recalled, and restored, and betrayed. The hopes
of the Armenians were sometimes raised by the presence of their natural
sovereign, * and the ministers of Valens were satisfied, that they
preserved the integrity of the public faith, if their vassal was not
suffered to assume the diadem and title of King. But they soon repented of
their own rashness. They were confounded by the reproaches and threats of
the Persian monarch. They found reason to distrust the cruel and
inconstant temper of Para himself; who sacrificed, to the slightest
suspicions, the lives of his most faithful servants, and held a secret and
disgraceful correspondence with the assassin of his father and the enemy
of his country. Under the specious pretence of consulting with the emperor
on the subject of their common interest, Para was persuaded to descend
from the mountains of Armenia, where his party was in arms, and to trust
his independence and safety to the discretion of a perfidious court. The
king of Armenia, for such he appeared in his own eyes and in those of his
nation, was received with due honors by the governors of the provinces
through which he passed; but when he arrived at Tarsus in Cilicia, his
progress was stopped under various pretences; his motions were watched
with respectful vigilance, and he gradually discovered, that he was a
prisoner in the hands of the Romans. Para suppressed his indignation,
dissembled his fears, and after secretly preparing his escape, mounted on
horseback with three hundred of his faithful followers. The officer
stationed at the door of his apartment immediately communicated his flight
to the consular of Cilicia, who overtook him in the suburbs, and
endeavored without success, to dissuade him from prosecuting his rash and
dangerous design. A legion was ordered to pursue the royal fugitive; but
the pursuit of infantry could not be very alarming to a body of light
cavalry; and upon the first cloud of arrows that was discharged into the
air, they retreated with precipitation to the gates of Tarsus. After an
incessant march of two days and two nights, Para and his Armenians reached
the banks of the Euphrates; but the passage of the river which they were
obliged to swim, * was attended with some delay and some loss. The country
was alarmed; and the two roads, which were only separated by an interval
of three miles had been occupied by a thousand archers on horseback, under
the command of a count and a tribune. Para must have yielded to superior
force, if the accidental arrival of a friendly traveller had not revealed
the danger and the means of escape. A dark and almost impervious path
securely conveyed the Armenian troop through the thicket; and Para had
left behind him the count and the tribune, while they patiently expected
his approach along the public highways. They returned to the Imperial
court to excuse their want of diligence or success; and seriously alleged,
that the king of Armenia, who was a skilful magician, had transformed
himself and his followers, and passed before their eyes under a borrowed
shape. After his return to his native kingdom, Para still continued to
profess himself the friend and ally of the Romans: but the Romans had
injured him too deeply ever to forgive, and the secret sentence of his
death was signed in the council of Valens. The execution of the bloody
deed was committed to the subtle prudence of Count Trajan; and he had the
merit of insinuating himself into the confidence of the credulous prince,
that he might find an opportunity of stabbing him to the heart Para was
invited to a Roman banquet, which had been prepared with all the pomp and
sensuality of the East; the hall resounded with cheerful music, and the
company was already heated with wine; when the count retired for an
instant, drew his sword, and gave the signal of the murder. A robust and
desperate Barbarian instantly rushed on the king of Armenia; and though he
bravely defended his life with the first weapon that chance offered to his
hand, the table of the Imperial general was stained with the royal blood
of a guest, and an ally. Such were the weak and wicked maxims of the Roman
administration, that, to attain a doubtful object of political interest
the laws of nations, and the sacred rights of hospitality were inhumanly
violated in the face of the world.
V. During a peaceful interval of thirty years, the Romans secured their
frontiers, and the Goths extended their dominions. The victories of the
great Hermanric, king of the Ostrogoths, and the most noble of the race of
the Amali, have been compared, by the enthusiasm of his countrymen, to the
exploits of Alexander; with this singular, and almost incredible,
difference, that the martial spirit of the Gothic hero, instead of being
supported by the vigor of youth, was displayed with glory and success in
the extreme period of human life, between the age of fourscore and one
hundred and ten years. The independent tribes were persuaded, or
compelled, to acknowledge the king of the Ostrogoths as the sovereign of
the Gothic nation: the chiefs of the Visigoths, or Thervingi, renounced
the royal title, and assumed the more humble appellation of Judges;
and, among those judges, Athanaric, Fritigern, and Alavivus, were the most
illustrious, by their personal merit, as well as by their vicinity to the
Roman provinces. These domestic conquests, which increased the military
power of Hermanric, enlarged his ambitious designs. He invaded the
adjacent countries of the North; and twelve considerable nations, whose
names and limits cannot be accurately defined, successively yielded to the
superiority of the Gothic arms. The Heruli, who inhabited the marshy lands
near the lake Mæotis, were renowned for their strength and agility;
and the assistance of their light infantry was eagerly solicited, and
highly esteemed, in all the wars of the Barbarians. But the active spirit
of the Heruli was subdued by the slow and steady perseverance of the
Goths; and, after a bloody action, in which the king was slain, the
remains of that warlike tribe became a useful accession to the camp of
Hermanric. He then marched against the Venedi; unskilled in the use of
arms, and formidable only by their numbers, which filled the wide extent
of the plains of modern Poland. The victorious Goths, who were not
inferior in numbers, prevailed in the contest, by the decisive advantages
of exercise and discipline. After the submission of the Venedi, the
conqueror advanced, without resistance, as far as the confines of the
Æstii; an ancient people, whose name is still preserved in the
province of Esthonia. Those distant inhabitants of the Baltic coast were
supported by the labors of agriculture, enriched by the trade of amber,
and consecrated by the peculiar worship of the Mother of the Gods. But the
scarcity of iron obliged the Æstian warriors to content themselves
with wooden clubs; and the reduction of that wealthy country is ascribed
to the prudence, rather than to the arms, of Hermanric. His dominions,
which extended from the Danube to the Baltic, included the native seats,
and the recent acquisitions, of the Goths; and he reigned over the
greatest part of Germany and Scythia with the authority of a conqueror,
and sometimes with the cruelty of a tyrant. But he reigned over a part of
the globe incapable of perpetuating and adorning the glory of its heroes.
The name of Hermanric is almost buried in oblivion; his exploits are
imperfectly known; and the Romans themselves appeared unconscious of the
progress of an aspiring power which threatened the liberty of the North,
and the peace of the empire.
The Goths had contracted an hereditary attachment for the Imperial house
of Constantine, of whose power and liberality they had received so many
signal proofs. They respected the public peace; and if a hostile band
sometimes presumed to pass the Roman limit, their irregular conduct was
candidly ascribed to the ungovernable spirit of the Barbarian youth. Their
contempt for two new and obscure princes, who had been raised to the
throne by a popular election, inspired the Goths with bolder hopes; and,
while they agitated some design of marching their confederate force under
the national standard, they were easily tempted to embrace the party of
Procopius; and to foment, by their dangerous aid, the civil discord of the
Romans. The public treaty might stipulate no more than ten thousand
auxiliaries; but the design was so zealously adopted by the chiefs of the
Visigoths, that the army which passed the Danube amounted to the number of
thirty thousand men. They marched with the proud confidence, that their
invincible valor would decide the fate of the Roman empire; and the
provinces of Thrace groaned under the weight of the Barbarians, who
displayed the insolence of masters and the licentiousness of enemies. But
the intemperance which gratified their appetites, retarded their progress;
and before the Goths could receive any certain intelligence of the defeat
and death of Procopius, they perceived, by the hostile state of the
country, that the civil and military powers were resumed by his successful
rival. A chain of posts and fortifications, skilfully disposed by Valens,
or the generals of Valens, resisted their march, prevented their retreat,
and intercepted their subsistence. The fierceness of the Barbarians was
tamed and suspended by hunger; they indignantly threw down their arms at
the feet of the conqueror, who offered them food and chains: the numerous
captives were distributed in all the cities of the East; and the
provincials, who were soon familiarized with their savage appearance,
ventured, by degrees, to measure their own strength with these formidable
adversaries, whose name had so long been the object of their terror. The
king of Scythia (and Hermanric alone could deserve so lofty a title) was
grieved and exasperated by this national calamity. His ambassadors loudly
complained, at the court of Valens, of the infraction of the ancient and
solemn alliance, which had so long subsisted between the Romans and the
Goths. They alleged, that they had fulfilled the duty of allies, by
assisting the kinsman and successor of the emperor Julian; they required
the immediate restitution of the noble captives; and they urged a very
singular claim, that the Gothic generals marching in arms, and in hostile
array, were entitled to the sacred character and privileges of
ambassadors. The decent, but peremptory, refusal of these extravagant
demands, was signified to the Barbarians by Victor, master-general of the
cavalry; who expressed, with force and dignity, the just complaints of the
emperor of the East. The negotiation was interrupted; and the manly
exhortations of Valentinian encouraged his timid brother to vindicate the
insulted majesty of the empire.
The splendor and magnitude of this Gothic war are celebrated by a
contemporary historian: but the events scarcely deserve the attention of
posterity, except as the preliminary steps of the approaching decline and
fall of the empire. Instead of leading the nations of Germany and Scythia
to the banks of the Danube, or even to the gates of Constantinople, the
aged monarch of the Goths resigned to the brave Athanaric the danger and
glory of a defensive war, against an enemy, who wielded with a feeble hand
the powers of a mighty state. A bridge of boats was established upon the
Danube; the presence of Valens animated his troops; and his ignorance of
the art of war was compensated by personal bravery, and a wise deference
to the advice of Victor and Arintheus, his masters-general of the cavalry
and infantry. The operations of the campaign were conducted by their skill
and experience; but they found it impossible to drive the Visigoths from
their strong posts in the mountains; and the devastation of the plains
obliged the Romans themselves to repass the Danube on the approach of
winter. The incessant rains, which swelled the waters of the river,
produced a tacit suspension of arms, and confined the emperor Valens,
during the whole course of the ensuing summer, to his camp of
Marcianopolis. The third year of the war was more favorable to the Romans,
and more pernicious to the Goths. The interruption of trade deprived the
Barbarians of the objects of luxury, which they already confounded with
the necessaries of life; and the desolation of a very extensive tract of
country threatened them with the horrors of famine. Athanaric was
provoked, or compelled, to risk a battle, which he lost, in the plains;
and the pursuit was rendered more bloody by the cruel precaution of the
victorious generals, who had promised a large reward for the head of every
Goth that was brought into the Imperial camp. The submission of the
Barbarians appeased the resentment of Valens and his council: the emperor
listened with satisfaction to the flattering and eloquent remonstrance of
the senate of Constantinople, which assumed, for the first time, a share
in the public deliberations; and the same generals, Victor and Arintheus,
who had successfully directed the conduct of the war, were empowered to
regulate the conditions of peace. The freedom of trade, which the Goths
had hitherto enjoyed, was restricted to two cities on the Danube; the
rashness of their leaders was severely punished by the suppression of
their pensions and subsidies; and the exception, which was stipulated in
favor of Athanaric alone, was more advantageous than honorable to the
Judge of the Visigoths. Athanaric, who, on this occasion, appears to have
consulted his private interest, without expecting the orders of his
sovereign, supported his own dignity, and that of his tribe, in the
personal interview which was proposed by the ministers of Valens. He
persisted in his declaration, that it was impossible for him, without
incurring the guilt of perjury, ever to set his foot on the territory of
the empire; and it is more than probable, that his regard for the sanctity
of an oath was confirmed by the recent and fatal examples of Roman
treachery. The Danube, which separated the dominions of the two
independent nations, was chosen for the scene of the conference. The
emperor of the East, and the Judge of the Visigoths, accompanied by an
equal number of armed followers, advanced in their respective barges to
the middle of the stream. After the ratification of the treaty, and the
delivery of hostages, Valens returned in triumph to Constantinople; and
the Goths remained in a state of tranquillity about six years; till they
were violently impelled against the Roman empire by an innumerable host of
Scythians, who appeared to issue from the frozen regions of the North.
The emperor of the West, who had resigned to his brother the command of
the Lower Danube, reserved for his immediate care the defence of the Rhætian
and Illyrian provinces, which spread so many hundred miles along the
greatest of the European rivers. The active policy of Valentinian was
continually employed in adding new fortifications to the security of the
frontier: but the abuse of this policy provoked the just resentment of the
Barbarians. The Quadi complained, that the ground for an intended fortress
had been marked out on their territories; and their complaints were urged
with so much reason and moderation, that Equitius, master-general of
Illyricum, consented to suspend the prosecution of the work, till he
should be more clearly informed of the will of his sovereign. This fair
occasion of injuring a rival, and of advancing the fortune of his son, was
eagerly embraced by the inhuman Maximin, the præfect, or rather
tyrant, of Gaul. The passions of Valentinian were impatient of control;
and he credulously listened to the assurances of his favorite, that if the
government of Valeria, and the direction of the work, were intrusted to
the zeal of his son Marcellinus, the emperor should no longer be
importuned with the audacious remonstrances of the Barbarians. The
subjects of Rome, and the natives of Germany, were insulted by the
arrogance of a young and worthless minister, who considered his rapid
elevation as the proof and reward of his superior merit. He affected,
however, to receive the modest application of Gabinius, king of the Quadi,
with some attention and regard: but this artful civility concealed a dark
and bloody design, and the credulous prince was persuaded to accept the
pressing invitation of Marcellinus. I am at a loss how to vary the
narrative of similar crimes; or how to relate, that, in the course of the
same year, but in remote parts of the empire, the inhospitable table of
two Imperial generals was stained with the royal blood of two guests and
allies, inhumanly murdered by their order, and in their presence. The fate
of Gabinius, and of Para, was the same: but the cruel death of their
sovereign was resented in a very different manner by the servile temper of
the Armenians, and the free and daring spirit of the Germans. The Quadi
were much declined from that formidable power, which, in the time of
Marcus Antoninus, had spread terror to the gates of Rome. But they still
possessed arms and courage; their courage was animated by despair, and
they obtained the usual reenforcement of the cavalry of their Sarmatian
allies. So improvident was the assassin Marcellinus, that he chose the
moment when the bravest veterans had been drawn away, to suppress the
revolt of Firmus; and the whole province was exposed, with a very feeble
defence, to the rage of the exasperated Barbarians. They invaded Pannonia
in the season of harvest; unmercifully destroyed every object of plunder
which they could not easily transport; and either disregarded, or
demolished, the empty fortifications. The princess Constantia, the
daughter of the emperor Constantius, and the granddaughter of the great
Constantine, very narrowly escaped. That royal maid, who had innocently
supported the revolt of Procopius, was now the destined wife of the heir
of the Western empire. She traversed the peaceful province with a splendid
and unarmed train. Her person was saved from danger, and the republic from
disgrace, by the active zeal of Messala, governor of the provinces. As
soon as he was informed that the village, where she stopped only to dine,
was almost encompassed by the Barbarians, he hastily placed her in his own
chariot, and drove full speed till he reached the gates of Sirmium, which
were at the distance of six-and-twenty miles. Even Sirmium might not have
been secure, if the Quadi and Sarmatians had diligently advanced during
the general consternation of the magistrates and people. Their delay
allowed Probus, the Prætorian præfect, sufficient time to
recover his own spirits, and to revive the courage of the citizens. He
skilfully directed their strenuous efforts to repair and strengthen the
decayed fortifications; and procured the seasonable and effectual
assistance of a company of archers, to protect the capital of the Illyrian
provinces. Disappointed in their attempts against the walls of Sirmium,
the indignant Barbarians turned their arms against the master general of
the frontier, to whom they unjustly attributed the murder of their king.
Equitius could bring into the field no more than two legions; but they
contained the veteran strength of the Mæsian and Pannonian bands.
The obstinacy with which they disputed the vain honors of rank and
precedency, was the cause of their destruction; and while they acted with
separate forces and divided councils, they were surprised and slaughtered
by the active vigor of the Sarmatian horse. The success of this invasion
provoked the emulation of the bordering tribes; and the province of Mæsia
would infallibly have been lost, if young Theodosius, the duke, or
military commander, of the frontier, had not signalized, in the defeat of
the public enemy, an intrepid genius, worthy of his illustrious father,
and of his future greatness.
The mind of Valentinian, who then resided at Treves, was deeply affected
by the calamities of Illyricum; but the lateness of the season suspended
the execution of his designs till the ensuing spring. He marched in
person, with a considerable part of the forces of Gaul, from the banks of
the Moselle: and to the suppliant ambassadors of the Sarmatians, who met
him on the way, he returned a doubtful answer, that, as soon as he reached
the scene of action, he should examine, and pronounce. When he arrived at
Sirmium, he gave audience to the deputies of the Illyrian provinces; who
loudly congratulated their own felicity under the auspicious government of
Probus, his Prætorian præfect. Valentinian, who was flattered
by these demonstrations of their loyalty and gratitude, imprudently asked
the deputy of Epirus, a Cynic philosopher of intrepid sincerity, whether
he was freely sent by the wishes of the province. "With tears and groans
am I sent," replied Iphicles, "by a reluctant people." The emperor paused:
but the impunity of his ministers established the pernicious maxim, that
they might oppress his subjects, without injuring his service. A strict
inquiry into their conduct would have relieved the public discontent. The
severe condemnation of the murder of Gabinius, was the only measure which
could restore the confidence of the Germans, and vindicate the honor of
the Roman name. But the haughty monarch was incapable of the magnanimity
which dares to acknowledge a fault. He forgot the provocation, remembered
only the injury, and advanced into the country of the Quadi with an
insatiate thirst of blood and revenge. The extreme devastation, and
promiscuous massacre, of a savage war, were justified, in the eyes of the
emperor, and perhaps in those of the world, by the cruel equity of
retaliation: and such was the discipline of the Romans, and the
consternation of the enemy, that Valentinian repassed the Danube without
the loss of a single man. As he had resolved to complete the destruction
of the Quadi by a second campaign, he fixed his winter quarters at
Bregetio, on the Danube, near the Hungarian city of Presburg. While the
operations of war were suspended by the severity of the weather, the Quadi
made an humble attempt to deprecate the wrath of their conqueror; and, at
the earnest persuasion of Equitius, their ambassadors were introduced into
the Imperial council. They approached the throne with bended bodies and
dejected countenances; and without daring to complain of the murder of
their king, they affirmed, with solemn oaths, that the late invasion was
the crime of some irregular robbers, which the public council of the
nation condemned and abhorred. The answer of the emperor left them but
little to hope from his clemency or compassion. He reviled, in the most
intemperate language, their baseness, their ingratitude, their insolence.
His eyes, his voice, his color, his gestures, expressed the violence of
his ungoverned fury; and while his whole frame was agitated with
convulsive passion, a large blood vessel suddenly burst in his body; and
Valentinian fell speechless into the arms of his attendants. Their pious
care immediately concealed his situation from the crowd; but, in a few
minutes, the emperor of the West expired in an agony of pain, retaining
his senses till the last; and struggling, without success, to declare his
intentions to the generals and ministers, who surrounded the royal couch.
Valentinian was about fifty-four years of age; and he wanted only one
hundred days to accomplish the twelve years of his reign.
The polygamy of Valentinian is seriously attested by an ecclesiastical
historian. "The empress Severa (I relate the fable) admitted into her
familiar society the lovely Justina, the daughter of an Italian governor:
her admiration of those naked charms, which she had often seen in the
bath, was expressed with such lavish and imprudent praise, that the
emperor was tempted to introduce a second wife into his bed; and his
public edict extended to all the subjects of the empire the same domestic
privilege which he had assumed for himself." But we may be assured, from
the evidence of reason as well as history, that the two marriages of
Valentinian, with Severa, and with Justina, were successively
contracted; and that he used the ancient permission of divorce, which was
still allowed by the laws, though it was condemned by the church. Severa
was the mother of Gratian, who seemed to unite every claim which could
entitle him to the undoubted succession of the Western empire. He was the
eldest son of a monarch whose glorious reign had confirmed the free and
honorable choice of his fellow-soldiers. Before he had attained the ninth
year of his age, the royal youth received from the hands of his indulgent
father the purple robe and diadem, with the title of Augustus; the
election was solemnly ratified by the consent and applause of the armies
of Gaul; and the name of Gratian was added to the names of Valentinian and
Valens, in all the legal transactions of the Roman government. By his
marriage with the granddaughter of Constantine, the son of Valentinian
acquired all the hereditary rights of the Flavian family; which, in a
series of three Imperial generations, were sanctified by time, religion,
and the reverence of the people. At the death of his father, the royal
youth was in the seventeenth year of his age; and his virtues already
justified the favorable opinion of the army and the people. But Gratian
resided, without apprehension, in the palace of Treves; whilst, at the
distance of many hundred miles, Valentinian suddenly expired in the camp
of Bregetio. The passions, which had been so long suppressed by the
presence of a master, immediately revived in the Imperial council; and the
ambitious design of reigning in the name of an infant, was artfully
executed by Mellobaudes and Equitius, who commanded the attachment of the
Illyrian and Italian bands. They contrived the most honorable pretences to
remove the popular leaders, and the troops of Gaul, who might have
asserted the claims of the lawful successor; they suggested the necessity
of extinguishing the hopes of foreign and domestic enemies, by a bold and
decisive measure. The empress Justina, who had been left in a palace about
one hundred miles from Bregetio, was respectively invited to appear in the
camp, with the son of the deceased emperor. On the sixth day after the
death of Valentinian, the infant prince of the same name, who was only
four years old, was shown, in the arms of his mother, to the legions; and
solemnly invested, by military acclamation, with the titles and ensigns of
supreme power. The impending dangers of a civil war were seasonably
prevented by the wise and moderate conduct of the emperor Gratian. He
cheerfully accepted the choice of the army; declared that he should always
consider the son of Justina as a brother, not as a rival; and advised the
empress, with her son Valentinian to fix their residence at Milan, in the
fair and peaceful province of Italy; while he assumed the more arduous
command of the countries beyond the Alps. Gratian dissembled his
resentment till he could safely punish, or disgrace, the authors of the
conspiracy; and though he uniformly behaved with tenderness and regard to
his infant colleague, he gradually confounded, in the administration of
the Western empire, the office of a guardian with the authority of a
sovereign. The government of the Roman world was exercised in the united
names of Valens and his two nephews; but the feeble emperor of the East,
who succeeded to the rank of his elder brother, never obtained any weight
or influence in the councils of the West.
Manners Of The Pastoral Nations.—Progress Of The Huns, From China To Europe.—Flight Of The Goths.—They Pass The Danube. —Gothic War.—Defeat And Death Of Valens.—Gratian Invests Theodosius With The Eastern Empire.—His Character And Success. —Peace And Settlement Of The Goths.
In the second year of the reign of Valentinian and Valens, on the morning
of the twenty-first day of July, the greatest part of the Roman world was
shaken by a violent and destructive earthquake. The impression was
communicated to the waters; the shores of the Mediterranean were left dry,
by the sudden retreat of the sea; great quantities of fish were caught
with the hand; large vessels were stranded on the mud; and a curious
spectator amused his eye, or rather his fancy, by contemplating the
various appearance of valleys and mountains, which had never, since the
formation of the globe, been exposed to the sun. But the tide soon
returned, with the weight of an immense and irresistible deluge, which was
severely felt on the coasts of Sicily, of Dalmatia, of Greece, and of
Egypt: large boats were transported, and lodged on the roofs of houses, or
at the distance of two miles from the shore; the people, with their
habitations, were swept away by the waters; and the city of Alexandria
annually commemorated the fatal day, on which fifty thousand persons had
lost their lives in the inundation. This calamity, the report of which was
magnified from one province to another, astonished and terrified the
subjects of Rome; and their affrighted imagination enlarged the real
extent of a momentary evil. They recollected the preceding earthquakes,
which had subverted the cities of Palestine and Bithynia: they considered
these alarming strokes as the prelude only of still more dreadful
calamities, and their fearful vanity was disposed to confound the symptoms
of a declining empire and a sinking world. It was the fashion of the times
to attribute every remarkable event to the particular will of the Deity;
the alterations of nature were connected, by an invisible chain, with the
moral and metaphysical opinions of the human mind; and the most sagacious
divines could distinguish, according to the color of their respective
prejudices, that the establishment of heresy tended to produce an
earthquake; or that a deluge was the inevitable consequence of the
progress of sin and error. Without presuming to discuss the truth or
propriety of these lofty speculations, the historian may content himself
with an observation, which seems to be justified by experience, that man
has much more to fear from the passions of his fellow-creatures, than from
the convulsions of the elements. The mischievous effects of an earthquake,
or deluge, a hurricane, or the eruption of a volcano, bear a very
inconsiderable portion to the ordinary calamities of war, as they are now
moderated by the prudence or humanity of the princes of Europe, who amuse
their own leisure, and exercise the courage of their subjects, in the
practice of the military art. But the laws and manners of modern nations
protect the safety and freedom of the vanquished soldier; and the peaceful
citizen has seldom reason to complain, that his life, or even his fortune,
is exposed to the rage of war. In the disastrous period of the fall of the
Roman empire, which may justly be dated from the reign of Valens, the
happiness and security of each individual were personally attacked; and
the arts and labors of ages were rudely defaced by the Barbarians of
Scythia and Germany. The invasion of the Huns precipitated on the
provinces of the West the Gothic nation, which advanced, in less than
forty years, from the Danube to the Atlantic, and opened a way, by the
success of their arms, to the inroads of so many hostile tribes, more
savage than themselves. The original principle of motion was concealed in
the remote countries of the North; and the curious observation of the
pastoral life of the Scythians, or Tartars, will illustrate the latent
cause of these destructive emigrations.
The different characters that mark the civilized nations of the globe, may
be ascribed to the use, and the abuse, of reason; which so variously
shapes, and so artificially composes, the manners and opinions of a
European, or a Chinese. But the operation of instinct is more sure and
simple than that of reason: it is much easier to ascertain the appetites
of a quadruped than the speculations of a philosopher; and the savage
tribes of mankind, as they approach nearer to the condition of animals,
preserve a stronger resemblance to themselves and to each other. The
uniform stability of their manners is the natural consequence of the
imperfection of their faculties. Reduced to a similar situation, their
wants, their desires, their enjoyments, still continue the same: and the
influence of food or climate, which, in a more improved state of society,
is suspended, or subdued, by so many moral causes, most powerfully
contributes to form, and to maintain, the national character of
Barbarians. In every age, the immense plains of Scythia, or Tartary, have
been inhabited by vagrant tribes of hunters and shepherds, whose indolence
refuses to cultivate the earth, and whose restless spirit disdains the
confinement of a sedentary life. In every age, the Scythians, and Tartars,
have been renowned for their invincible courage and rapid conquests. The
thrones of Asia have been repeatedly overturned by the shepherds of the
North; and their arms have spread terror and devastation over the most
fertile and warlike countries of Europe. On this occasion, as well as on
many others, the sober historian is forcibly awakened from a pleasing
vision; and is compelled, with some reluctance, to confess, that the
pastoral manners, which have been adorned with the fairest attributes of
peace and innocence, are much better adapted to the fierce and cruel
habits of a military life. To illustrate this observation, I shall now
proceed to consider a nation of shepherds and of warriors, in the three
important articles of, I. Their diet; II. Their habitations; and, III.
Their exercises. The narratives of antiquity are justified by the
experience of modern times; and the banks of the Borysthenes, of the
Volga, or of the Selinga, will indifferently present the same uniform
spectacle of similar and native manners.
I. The corn, or even the rice, which constitutes the ordinary and
wholesome food of a civilized people, can be obtained only by the patient
toil of the husbandman. Some of the happy savages, who dwell between the
tropics, are plentifully nourished by the liberality of nature; but in the
climates of the North, a nation of shepherds is reduced to their flocks
and herds. The skilful practitioners of the medical art will determine (if
they are able to determine) how far the temper of the human mind may be
affected by the use of animal, or of vegetable, food; and whether the
common association of carnivorous and cruel deserves to be considered in
any other light than that of an innocent, perhaps a salutary, prejudice of
humanity. Yet, if it be true, that the sentiment of compassion is
imperceptibly weakened by the sight and practice of domestic cruelty, we
may observe, that the horrid objects which are disguised by the arts of
European refinement, are exhibited in their naked and most disgusting
simplicity in the tent of a Tartarian shepherd. The ox, or the sheep, are
slaughtered by the same hand from which they were accustomed to receive
their daily food; and the bleeding limbs are served, with very little
preparation, on the table of their unfeeling murderer. In the military
profession, and especially in the conduct of a numerous army, the
exclusive use of animal food appears to be productive of the most solid
advantages. Corn is a bulky and perishable commodity; and the large
magazines, which are indispensably necessary for the subsistence of our
troops, must be slowly transported by the labor of men or horses. But the
flocks and herds, which accompany the march of the Tartars, afford a sure
and increasing supply of flesh and milk: in the far greater part of the
uncultivated waste, the vegetation of the grass is quick and luxuriant;
and there are few places so extremely barren, that the hardy cattle of the
North cannot find some tolerable pasture. The supply is multiplied and
prolonged by the undistinguishing appetite, and patient abstinence, of the
Tartars. They indifferently feed on the flesh of those animals that have
been killed for the table, or have died of disease. Horseflesh, which in
every age and country has been proscribed by the civilized nations of
Europe and Asia, they devour with peculiar greediness; and this singular
taste facilitates the success of their military operations. The active
cavalry of Scythia is always followed, in their most distant and rapid
incursions, by an adequate number of spare horses, who may be occasionally
used, either to redouble the speed, or to satisfy the hunger, of the
Barbarians. Many are the resources of courage and poverty. When the forage
round a camp of Tartars is almost consumed, they slaughter the greatest
part of their cattle, and preserve the flesh, either smoked, or dried in
the sun. On the sudden emergency of a hasty march, they provide themselves
with a sufficient quantity of little balls of cheese, or rather of hard
curd, which they occasionally dissolve in water; and this unsubstantial
diet will support, for many days, the life, and even the spirits, of the
patient warrior. But this extraordinary abstinence, which the Stoic would
approve, and the hermit might envy, is commonly succeeded by the most
voracious indulgence of appetite. The wines of a happier climate are the
most grateful present, or the most valuable commodity, that can be offered
to the Tartars; and the only example of their industry seems to consist in
the art of extracting from mare's milk a fermented liquor, which possesses
a very strong power of intoxication. Like the animals of prey, the
savages, both of the old and new world, experience the alternate
vicissitudes of famine and plenty; and their stomach is inured to sustain,
without much inconvenience, the opposite extremes of hunger and of
intemperance.
II. In the ages of rustic and martial simplicity, a people of soldiers and
husbandmen are dispersed over the face of an extensive and cultivated
country; and some time must elapse before the warlike youth of Greece or
Italy could be assembled under the same standard, either to defend their
own confines, or to invade the territories of the adjacent tribes. The
progress of manufactures and commerce insensibly collects a large
multitude within the walls of a city: but these citizens are no longer
soldiers; and the arts which adorn and improve the state of civil society,
corrupt the habits of the military life. The pastoral manners of the
Scythians seem to unite the different advantages of simplicity and
refinement. The individuals of the same tribe are constantly assembled,
but they are assembled in a camp; and the native spirit of these dauntless
shepherds is animated by mutual support and emulation. The houses of the
Tartars are no more than small tents, of an oval form, which afford a cold
and dirty habitation, for the promiscuous youth of both sexes. The palaces
of the rich consist of wooden huts, of such a size that they may be
conveniently fixed on large wagons, and drawn by a team perhaps of twenty
or thirty oxen. The flocks and herds, after grazing all day in the
adjacent pastures, retire, on the approach of night, within the protection
of the camp. The necessity of preventing the most mischievous confusion,
in such a perpetual concourse of men and animals, must gradually
introduce, in the distribution, the order, and the guard, of the
encampment, the rudiments of the military art. As soon as the forage of a
certain district is consumed, the tribe, or rather army, of shepherds,
makes a regular march to some fresh pastures; and thus acquires, in the
ordinary occupations of the pastoral life, the practical knowledge of one
of the most important and difficult operations of war. The choice of
stations is regulated by the difference of the seasons: in the summer, the
Tartars advance towards the North, and pitch their tents on the banks of a
river, or, at least, in the neighborhood of a running stream. But in the
winter, they return to the South, and shelter their camp, behind some
convenient eminence, against the winds, which are chilled in their passage
over the bleak and icy regions of Siberia. These manners are admirably
adapted to diffuse, among the wandering tribes, the spirit of emigration
and conquest. The connection between the people and their territory is of
so frail a texture, that it may be broken by the slightest accident. The
camp, and not the soil, is the native country of the genuine Tartar.
Within the precincts of that camp, his family, his companions, his
property, are always included; and, in the most distant marches, he is
still surrounded by the objects which are dear, or valuable, or familiar
in his eyes. The thirst of rapine, the fear, or the resentment of injury,
the impatience of servitude, have, in every age, been sufficient causes to
urge the tribes of Scythia boldly to advance into some unknown countries,
where they might hope to find a more plentiful subsistence or a less
formidable enemy. The revolutions of the North have frequently determined
the fate of the South; and in the conflict of hostile nations, the victor
and the vanquished have alternately drove, and been driven, from the
confines of China to those of Germany. These great emigrations, which have
been sometimes executed with almost incredible diligence, were rendered
more easy by the peculiar nature of the climate. It is well known that the
cold of Tartary is much more severe than in the midst of the temperate
zone might reasonably be expected; this uncommon rigor is attributed to
the height of the plains, which rise, especially towards the East, more
than half a mile above the level of the sea; and to the quantity of
saltpetre with which the soil is deeply impregnated. In the winter season,
the broad and rapid rivers, that discharge their waters into the Euxine,
the Caspian, or the Icy Sea, are strongly frozen; the fields are covered
with a bed of snow; and the fugitive, or victorious, tribes may securely
traverse, with their families, their wagons, and their cattle, the smooth
and hard surface of an immense plain.
III. The pastoral life, compared with the labors of agriculture and
manufactures, is undoubtedly a life of idleness; and as the most honorable
shepherds of the Tartar race devolve on their captives the domestic
management of the cattle, their own leisure is seldom disturbed by any
servile and assiduous cares. But this leisure, instead of being devoted to
the soft enjoyments of love and harmony, is usefully spent in the violent
and sanguinary exercise of the chase. The plains of Tartary are filled
with a strong and serviceable breed of horses, which are easily trained
for the purposes of war and hunting. The Scythians of every age have been
celebrated as bold and skilful riders; and constant practice had seated
them so firmly on horseback, that they were supposed by strangers to
perform the ordinary duties of civil life, to eat, to drink, and even to
sleep, without dismounting from their steeds. They excel in the dexterous
management of the lance; the long Tartar bow is drawn with a nervous arm;
and the weighty arrow is directed to its object with unerring aim and
irresistible force. These arrows are often pointed against the harmless
animals of the desert, which increase and multiply in the absence of their
most formidable enemy; the hare, the goat, the roebuck, the fallow-deer,
the stag, the elk, and the antelope. The vigor and patience, both of the
men and horses, are continually exercised by the fatigues of the chase;
and the plentiful supply of game contributes to the subsistence, and even
luxury, of a Tartar camp. But the exploits of the hunters of Scythia are
not confined to the destruction of timid or innoxious beasts; they boldly
encounter the angry wild boar, when he turns against his pursuers, excite
the sluggish courage of the bear, and provoke the fury of the tiger, as he
slumbers in the thicket. Where there is danger, there may be glory; and
the mode of hunting, which opens the fairest field to the exertions of
valor, may justly be considered as the image, and as the school, of war.
The general hunting matches, the pride and delight of the Tartar princes,
compose an instructive exercise for their numerous cavalry. A circle is
drawn, of many miles in circumference, to encompass the game of an
extensive district; and the troops that form the circle regularly advance
towards a common centre; where the captive animals, surrounded on every
side, are abandoned to the darts of the hunters. In this march, which
frequently continues many days, the cavalry are obliged to climb the
hills, to swim the rivers, and to wind through the valleys, without
interrupting the prescribed order of their gradual progress. They acquire
the habit of directing their eye, and their steps, to a remote object; of
preserving their intervals of suspending or accelerating their pace,
according to the motions of the troops on their right and left; and of
watching and repeating the signals of their leaders. Their leaders study,
in this practical school, the most important lesson of the military art;
the prompt and accurate judgment of ground, of distance, and of time. To
employ against a human enemy the same patience and valor, the same skill
and discipline, is the only alteration which is required in real war; and
the amusements of the chase serve as a prelude to the conquest of an
empire.
The political society of the ancient Germans has the appearance of a
voluntary alliance of independent warriors. The tribes of Scythia,
distinguished by the modern appellation of Hords,
assume the form of a numerous and increasing family; which, in the course
of successive generations, has been propagated from the same original
stock. The meanest, and most ignorant, of the Tartars, preserve, with
conscious pride, the inestimable treasure of their genealogy; and whatever
distinctions of rank may have been introduced, by the unequal distribution
of pastoral wealth, they mutually respect themselves, and each other, as
the descendants of the first founder of the tribe. The custom, which still
prevails, of adopting the bravest and most faithful of the captives, may
countenance the very probable suspicion, that this extensive consanguinity
is, in a great measure, legal and fictitious. But the useful prejudice,
which has obtained the sanction of time and opinion, produces the effects
of truth; the haughty Barbarians yield a cheerful and voluntary obedience
to the head of their blood; and their chief, or mursa,
as the representative of their great father, exercises the authority of a
judge in peace, and of a leader in war. In the original state of the
pastoral world, each of the mursas (if we may
continue to use a modern appellation) acted as the independent chief of a
large and separate family; and the limits of their peculiar territories
were gradually fixed by superior force, or mutual consent. But the
constant operation of various and permanent causes contributed to unite
the vagrant Hords into national communities, under the command of a
supreme head. The weak were desirous of support, and the strong were
ambitious of dominion; the power, which is the result of union, oppressed
and collected the divided force of the adjacent tribes; and, as the
vanquished were freely admitted to share the advantages of victory, the
most valiant chiefs hastened to range themselves and their followers under
the formidable standard of a confederate nation. The most successful of
the Tartar princes assumed the military command, to which he was entitled
by the superiority, either of merit or of power. He was raised to the
throne by the acclamations of his equals; and the title of Khan
expresses, in the language of the North of Asia, the full extent of the
regal dignity. The right of hereditary succession was long confined to the
blood of the founder of the monarchy; and at this moment all the Khans,
who reign from Crimea to the wall of China, are the lineal descendants of
the renowned Zingis. But, as it is the indispensable duty of a Tartar
sovereign to lead his warlike subjects into the field, the claims of an
infant are often disregarded; and some royal kinsman, distinguished by his
age and valor, is intrusted with the sword and sceptre of his predecessor.
Two distinct and regular taxes are levied on the tribes, to support the
dignity of the national monarch, and of their peculiar chief; and each of
those contributions amounts to the tithe, both of their property, and of
their spoil. A Tartar sovereign enjoys the tenth part of the wealth of his
people; and as his own domestic riches of flocks and herds increase in a
much larger proportion, he is able plentifully to maintain the rustic
splendor of his court, to reward the most deserving, or the most favored
of his followers, and to obtain, from the gentle influence of corruption,
the obedience which might be sometimes refused to the stern mandates of
authority. The manners of his subjects, accustomed, like himself, to blood
and rapine, might excuse, in their eyes, such partial acts of tyranny, as
would excite the horror of a civilized people; but the power of a despot
has never been acknowledged in the deserts of Scythia. The immediate
jurisdiction of the khan is confined within the limits of his own tribe;
and the exercise of his royal prerogative has been moderated by the
ancient institution of a national council. The Coroultai, or Diet, of the
Tartars, was regularly held in the spring and autumn, in the midst of a
plain; where the princes of the reigning family, and the mursas of the
respective tribes, may conveniently assemble on horseback, with their
martial and numerous trains; and the ambitious monarch, who reviewed the
strength, must consult the inclination of an armed people. The rudiments
of a feudal government may be discovered in the constitution of the
Scythian or Tartar nations; but the perpetual conflict of those hostile
nations has sometimes terminated in the establishment of a powerful and
despotic empire. The victor, enriched by the tribute, and fortified by the
arms of dependent kings, has spread his conquests over Europe or Asia: the
successful shepherds of the North have submitted to the confinement of
arts, of laws, and of cities; and the introduction of luxury, after
destroying the freedom of the people, has undermined the foundations of
the throne.
The memory of past events cannot long be preserved in the frequent and
remote emigrations of illiterate Barbarians. The modern Tartars are
ignorant of the conquests of their ancestors; and our knowledge of the
history of the Scythians is derived from their intercourse with the
learned and civilized nations of the South, the Greeks, the Persians, and
the Chinese. The Greeks, who navigated the Euxine, and planted their
colonies along the sea-coast, made the gradual and imperfect discovery of
Scythia; from the Danube, and the confines of Thrace, as far as the frozen
Mæotis, the seat of eternal winter, and Mount Caucasus, which, in
the language of poetry, was described as the utmost boundary of the earth.
They celebrated, with simple credulity, the virtues of the pastoral life:
they entertained a more rational apprehension of the strength and numbers
of the warlike Barbarians, who contemptuously baffled the immense armament
of Darius, the son of Hystaspes. The Persian monarchs had extended their
western conquests to the banks of the Danube, and the limits of European
Scythia. The eastern provinces of their empire were exposed to the
Scythians of Asia; the wild inhabitants of the plains beyond the Oxus and
the Jaxartes, two mighty rivers, which direct their course towards the
Caspian Sea. The long and memorable quarrel of Iran and Touran is still
the theme of history or romance: the famous, perhaps the fabulous, valor
of the Persian heroes, Rustan and Asfendiar, was signalized, in the
defence of their country, against the Afrasiabs of the North; and the
invincible spirit of the same Barbarians resisted, on the same ground, the
victorious arms of Cyrus and Alexander. In the eyes of the Greeks and
Persians, the real geography of Scythia was bounded, on the East, by the
mountains of Imaus, or Caf; and their distant prospect of the extreme and
inaccessible parts of Asia was clouded by ignorance, or perplexed by
fiction. But those inaccessible regions are the ancient residence of a
powerful and civilized nation, which ascends, by a probable tradition,
above forty centuries; and which is able to verify a series of near two
thousand years, by the perpetual testimony of accurate and contemporary
historians. The annals of China illustrate the state and revolutions of
the pastoral tribes, which may still be distinguished by the vague
appellation of Scythians, or Tartars; the vassals, the enemies, and
sometimes the conquerors, of a great empire; whose policy has uniformly
opposed the blind and impetuous valor of the Barbarians of the North. From
the mouth of the Danube to the Sea of Japan, the whole longitude of
Scythia is about one hundred and ten degrees, which, in that parallel, are
equal to more than five thousand miles. The latitude of these extensive
deserts cannot be so easily, or so accurately, measured; but, from the
fortieth degree, which touches the wall of China, we may securely advance
above a thousand miles to the northward, till our progress is stopped by
the excessive cold of Siberia. In that dreary climate, instead of the
animated picture of a Tartar camp, the smoke that issues from the earth,
or rather from the snow, betrays the subterraneous dwellings of the
Tongouses, and the Samoides: the want of horses and oxen is imperfectly
supplied by the use of reindeer, and of large dogs; and the conquerors of
the earth insensibly degenerate into a race of deformed and diminutive
savages, who tremble at the sound of arms.
The Huns, who under the reign of Valens threatened the empire of Rome, had
been formidable, in a much earlier period, to the empire of China. Their
ancient, perhaps their original, seat was an extensive, though dry and
barren, tract of country, immediately on the north side of the great wall.
Their place is at present occupied by the forty-nine Hords or Banners of
the Mongous, a pastoral nation, which consists of about two hundred
thousand families. But the valor of the Huns had extended the narrow
limits of their dominions; and their rustic chiefs, who assumed the
appellation of Tanjou, gradually became the
conquerors, and the sovereigns of a formidable empire. Towards the East,
their victorious arms were stopped only by the ocean; and the tribes,
which are thinly scattered between the Amoor and the extreme peninsula of
Corea, adhered, with reluctance, to the standard of the Huns. On the West,
near the head of the Irtish, in the valleys of Imaus, they found a more
ample space, and more numerous enemies. One of the lieutenants of the
Tanjou subdued, in a single expedition, twenty-six nations; the Igours,
distinguished above the Tartar race by the use of letters, were in the
number of his vassals; and, by the strange connection of human events, the
flight of one of those vagrant tribes recalled the victorious Parthians
from the invasion of Syria. On the side of the North, the ocean was
assigned as the limit of the power of the Huns. Without enemies to resist
their progress, or witnesses to contradict their vanity, they might
securely achieve a real, or imaginary, conquest of the frozen regions of
Siberia. The Northern Sea was fixed as the
remote boundary of their empire. But the name of that sea, on whose shores
the patriot Sovou embraced the life of a shepherd and an exile, may be
transferred, with much more probability, to the Baikal, a capacious basin,
above three hundred miles in length, which disdains the modest appellation
of a lake and which actually communicates with the seas of the North, by
the long course of the Angara, the Tongusha, and the Jenissea. The
submission of so many distant nations might flatter the pride of the
Tanjou; but the valor of the Huns could be rewarded only by the enjoyment
of the wealth and luxury of the empire of the South. In the third century
before the Christian æra, a wall of fifteen hundred miles in length
was constructed, to defend the frontiers of China against the inroads of
the Huns; but this stupendous work, which holds a conspicuous place in the
map of the world, has never contributed to the safety of an unwarlike
people. The cavalry of the Tanjou frequently consisted of two or three
hundred thousand men, formidable by the matchless dexterity with which
they managed their bows and their horses: by their hardy patience in
supporting the inclemency of the weather; and by the incredible speed of
their march, which was seldom checked by torrents, or precipices, by the
deepest rivers, or by the most lofty mountains. They spread themselves at
once over the face of the country; and their rapid impetuosity surprised,
astonished, and disconcerted the grave and elaborate tactics of a Chinese
army. The emperor Kaoti, a soldier of fortune, whose personal merit had
raised him to the throne, marched against the Huns with those veteran
troops which had been trained in the civil wars of China. But he was soon
surrounded by the Barbarians; and, after a siege of seven days, the
monarch, hopeless of relief, was reduced to purchase his deliverance by an
ignominious capitulation. The successors of Kaoti, whose lives were
dedicated to the arts of peace, or the luxury of the palace, submitted to
a more permanent disgrace. They too hastily confessed the insufficiency of
arms and fortifications. They were too easily convinced, that while the
blazing signals announced on every side the approach of the Huns, the
Chinese troops, who slept with the helmet on their head, and the cuirass
on their back, were destroyed by the incessant labor of ineffectual
marches. A regular payment of money, and silk, was stipulated as the
condition of a temporary and precarious peace; and the wretched expedient
of disguising a real tribute, under the names of a gift or subsidy, was
practised by the emperors of China as well as by those of Rome. But there
still remained a more disgraceful article of tribute, which violated the
sacred feelings of humanity and nature. The hardships of the savage life,
which destroy in their infancy the children who are born with a less
healthy and robust constitution, introduced a remarkable disproportion
between the numbers of the two sexes. The Tartars are an ugly and even
deformed race; and while they consider their own women as the instruments
of domestic labor, their desires, or rather their appetites, are directed
to the enjoyment of more elegant beauty. A select band of the fairest
maidens of China was annually devoted to the rude embraces of the Huns;
and the alliance of the haughty Tanjous was secured by their marriage with
the genuine, or adopted, daughters of the Imperial family, which vainly
attempted to escape the sacrilegious pollution. The situation of these
unhappy victims is described in the verses of a Chinese princess, who
laments that she had been condemned by her parents to a distant exile,
under a Barbarian husband; who complains that sour milk was her only
drink, raw flesh her only food, a tent her only palace; and who expresses,
in a strain of pathetic simplicity, the natural wish, that she were
transformed into a bird, to fly back to her dear country; the object of
her tender and perpetual regret.
The conquest of China has been twice achieved by the pastoral tribes of
the North: the forces of the Huns were not inferior to those of the
Moguls, or of the Mantcheoux; and their ambition might entertain the most
sanguine hopes of success. But their pride was humbled, and their progress
was checked, by the arms and policy of Vouti, the fifth emperor of the
powerful dynasty of the Han. In his long reign of fifty-four years, the
Barbarians of the southern provinces submitted to the laws and manners of
China; and the ancient limits of the monarchy were enlarged, from the
great river of Kiang, to the port of Canton. Instead of confining himself
to the timid operations of a defensive war, his lieutenants penetrated
many hundred miles into the country of the Huns. In those boundless
deserts, where it is impossible to form magazines, and difficult to
transport a sufficient supply of provisions, the armies of Vouti were
repeatedly exposed to intolerable hardships: and, of one hundred and forty
thousand soldiers, who marched against the Barbarians, thirty thousand
only returned in safety to the feet of their master. These losses,
however, were compensated by splendid and decisive success. The Chinese
generals improved the superiority which they derived from the temper of
their arms, their chariots of war, and the service of their Tartar
auxiliaries. The camp of the Tanjou was surprised in the midst of sleep
and intemperance; and, though the monarch of the Huns bravely cut his way
through the ranks of the enemy, he left above fifteen thousand of his
subjects on the field of battle. Yet this signal victory, which was
preceded and followed by many bloody engagements, contributed much less to
the destruction of the power of the Huns than the effectual policy which
was employed to detach the tributary nations from their obedience.
Intimidated by the arms, or allured by the promises, of Vouti and his
successors, the most considerable tribes, both of the East and of the
West, disclaimed the authority of the Tanjou. While some acknowledged
themselves the allies or vassals of the empire, they all became the
implacable enemies of the Huns; and the numbers of that haughty people, as
soon as they were reduced to their native strength, might, perhaps, have
been contained within the walls of one of the great and populous cities of
China. The desertion of his subjects, and the perplexity of a civil war,
at length compelled the Tanjou himself to renounce the dignity of an
independent sovereign, and the freedom of a warlike and high-spirited
nation. He was received at Sigan, the capital of the monarchy, by the
troops, the mandarins, and the emperor himself, with all the honors that
could adorn and disguise the triumph of Chinese vanity. A magnificent
palace was prepared for his reception; his place was assigned above all
the princes of the royal family; and the patience of the Barbarian king
was exhausted by the ceremonies of a banquet, which consisted of eight
courses of meat, and of nine solemn pieces of music. But he performed, on
his knees, the duty of a respectful homage to the emperor of China;
pronounced, in his own name, and in the name of his successors, a
perpetual oath of fidelity; and gratefully accepted a seal, which was
bestowed as the emblem of his regal dependence. After this humiliating
submission, the Tanjous sometimes departed from their allegiance and
seized the favorable moments of war and rapine; but the monarchy of the
Huns gradually declined, till it was broken, by civil dissension, into two
hostile and separate kingdoms. One of the princes of the nation was urged,
by fear and ambition, to retire towards the South with eight hords, which
composed between forty and fifty thousand families. He obtained, with the
title of Tanjou, a convenient territory on the verge of the Chinese
provinces; and his constant attachment to the service of the empire was
secured by weakness, and the desire of revenge. From the time of this
fatal schism, the Huns of the North continued to languish about fifty
years; till they were oppressed on every side by their foreign and
domestic enemies. The proud inscription of a column, erected on a lofty
mountain, announced to posterity, that a Chinese army had marched seven
hundred miles into the heart of their country. The Sienpi, a tribe of
Oriental Tartars, retaliated the injuries which they had formerly
sustained; and the power of the Tanjous, after a reign of thirteen hundred
years, was utterly destroyed before the end of the first century of the
Christian æra.
The fate of the vanquished Huns was diversified by the various influence
of character and situation. Above one hundred thousand persons, the
poorest, indeed, and the most pusillanimous of the people, were contented
to remain in their native country, to renounce their peculiar name and
origin, and to mingle with the victorious nation of the Sienpi.
Fifty-eight hords, about two hundred thousand men, ambitious of a more
honorable servitude, retired towards the South; implored the protection of
the emperors of China; and were permitted to inhabit, and to guard, the
extreme frontiers of the province of Chansi and the territory of Ortous.
But the most warlike and powerful tribes of the Huns maintained, in their
adverse fortune, the undaunted spirit of their ancestors. The Western
world was open to their valor; and they resolved, under the conduct of
their hereditary chieftains, to conquer and subdue some remote country,
which was still inaccessible to the arms of the Sienpi, and to the laws of
China. The course of their emigration soon carried them beyond the
mountains of Imaus, and the limits of the Chinese geography; but we are
able to distinguish the two great divisions of these formidable exiles,
which directed their march towards the Oxus, and towards the Volga. The
first of these colonies established their dominion in the fruitful and
extensive plains of Sogdiana, on the eastern side of the Caspian; where
they preserved the name of Huns, with the epithet of Euthalites, or
Nepthalites. Their manners were softened, and even their features were
insensibly improved, by the mildness of the climate, and their long
residence in a flourishing province, which might still retain a faint
impression of the arts of Greece. The white
Huns, a name which they derived from the change of their complexions, soon
abandoned the pastoral life of Scythia. Gorgo, which, under the
appellation of Carizme, has since enjoyed a temporary splendor, was the
residence of the king, who exercised a legal authority over an obedient
people. Their luxury was maintained by the labor of the Sogdians; and the
only vestige of their ancient barbarism, was the custom which obliged all
the companions, perhaps to the number of twenty, who had shared the
liberality of a wealthy lord, to be buried alive in the same grave. The
vicinity of the Huns to the provinces of Persia, involved them in frequent
and bloody contests with the power of that monarchy. But they respected,
in peace, the faith of treaties; in war, the dictates of humanity; and
their memorable victory over Peroses, or Firuz, displayed the moderation,
as well as the valor, of the Barbarians. The second
division of their countrymen, the Huns, who gradually advanced towards the
North-west, were exercised by the hardships of a colder climate, and a
more laborious march. Necessity compelled them to exchange the silks of
China for the furs of Siberia; the imperfect rudiments of civilized life
were obliterated; and the native fierceness of the Huns was exasperated by
their intercourse with the savage tribes, who were compared, with some
propriety, to the wild beasts of the desert. Their independent spirit soon
rejected the hereditary succession of the Tanjous; and while each horde
was governed by its peculiar mursa, their tumultuary council directed the
public measures of the whole nation. As late as the thirteenth century,
their transient residence on the eastern banks of the Volga was attested
by the name of Great Hungary. In the winter, they descended with their
flocks and herds towards the mouth of that mighty river; and their summer
excursions reached as high as the latitude of Saratoff, or perhaps the
conflux of the Kama. Such at least were the recent limits of the black
Calmucks, who remained about a century under the protection of Russia; and
who have since returned to their native seats on the frontiers of the
Chinese empire. The march, and the return, of those wandering Tartars,
whose united camp consists of fifty thousand tents or families, illustrate
the distant emigrations of the ancient Huns.
It is impossible to fill the dark interval of time, which elapsed, after
the Huns of the Volga were lost in the eyes of the Chinese, and before
they showed themselves to those of the Romans. There is some reason,
however, to apprehend, that the same force which had driven them from
their native seats, still continued to impel their march towards the
frontiers of Europe. The power of the Sienpi, their implacable enemies,
which extended above three thousand miles from East to West, must have
gradually oppressed them by the weight and terror of a formidable
neighborhood; and the flight of the tribes of Scythia would inevitably
tend to increase the strength or to contract the territories, of the Huns.
The harsh and obscure appellations of those tribes would offend the ear,
without informing the understanding, of the reader; but I cannot suppress
the very natural suspicion, that the Huns of the
North derived a considerable reenforcement from the ruin of the dynasty of
the South, which, in the course of the third century, submitted to the
dominion of China; that the bravest warriors
marched away in search of their free and adventurous countrymen; and
that, as they had been divided by prosperity, they were easily reunited by
the common hardships of their adverse fortune. The Huns, with their flocks
and herds, their wives and children, their dependents and allies, were
transported to the west of the Volga, and they boldly advanced to invade
the country of the Alani, a pastoral people, who occupied, or wasted, an
extensive tract of the deserts of Scythia. The plains between the Volga
and the Tanais were covered with the tents of the Alani, but their name
and manners were diffused over the wide extent of their conquests; and the
painted tribes of the Agathyrsi and Geloni were confounded among their
vassals. Towards the North, they penetrated into the frozen regions of
Siberia, among the savages who were accustomed, in their rage or hunger,
to the taste of human flesh; and their Southern inroads were pushed as far
as the confines of Persia and India. The mixture of Somatic and German
blood had contributed to improve the features of the Alani, * to whiten
their swarthy complexions, and to tinge their hair with a yellowish cast,
which is seldom found in the Tartar race. They were less deformed in their
persons, less brutish in their manners, than the Huns; but they did not
yield to those formidable Barbarians in their martial and independent
spirit; in the love of freedom, which rejected even the use of domestic
slaves; and in the love of arms, which considered war and rapine as the
pleasure and the glory of mankind. A naked cimeter, fixed in the ground,
was the only object of their religious worship; the scalps of their
enemies formed the costly trappings of their horses; and they viewed, with
pity and contempt, the pusillanimous warriors, who patiently expected the
infirmities of age, and the tortures of lingering disease. On the banks of
the Tanais, the military power of the Huns and the Alani encountered each
other with equal valor, but with unequal success. The Huns prevailed in
the bloody contest; the king of the Alani was slain; and the remains of
the vanquished nation were dispersed by the ordinary alternative of flight
or submission. A colony of exiles found a secure refuge in the mountains
of Caucasus, between the Euxine and the Caspian, where they still preserve
their name and their independence. Another colony advanced, with more
intrepid courage, towards the shores of the Baltic; associated themselves
with the Northern tribes of Germany; and shared the spoil of the Roman
provinces of Gaul and Spain. But the greatest part of the nation of the
Alani embraced the offers of an honorable and advantageous union; and the
Huns, who esteemed the valor of their less fortunate enemies, proceeded,
with an increase of numbers and confidence, to invade the limits of the
Gothic empire.
The great Hermanric, whose dominions extended from the Baltic to the
Euxine, enjoyed, in the full maturity of age and reputation, the fruit of
his victories, when he was alarmed by the formidable approach of a host of
unknown enemies, on whom his barbarous subjects might, without injustice,
bestow the epithet of Barbarians. The numbers, the strength, the rapid
motions, and the implacable cruelty of the Huns, were felt, and dreaded,
and magnified, by the astonished Goths; who beheld their fields and
villages consumed with flames, and deluged with indiscriminate slaughter.
To these real terrors they added the surprise and abhorrence which were
excited by the shrill voice, the uncouth gestures, and the strange
deformity of the Huns. * These savages of Scythia were compared (and the
picture had some resemblance) to the animals who walk very awkwardly on
two legs and to the misshapen figures, the Termini, which were often
placed on the bridges of antiquity. They were distinguished from the rest
of the human species by their broad shoulders, flat noses, and small black
eyes, deeply buried in the head; and as they were almost destitute of
beards, they never enjoyed either the manly grace of youth, or the
venerable aspect of age. A fabulous origin was assigned, worthy of their
form and manners; that the witches of Scythia, who, for their foul and
deadly practices, had been driven from society, had copulated in the
desert with infernal spirits; and that the Huns were the offspring of this
execrable conjunction. The tale, so full of horror and absurdity, was
greedily embraced by the credulous hatred of the Goths; but, while it
gratified their hatred, it increased their fear, since the posterity of dæmons
and witches might be supposed to inherit some share of the præternatural
powers, as well as of the malignant temper, of their parents. Against
these enemies, Hermanric prepared to exert the united forces of the Gothic
state; but he soon discovered that his vassal tribes, provoked by
oppression, were much more inclined to second, than to repel, the invasion
of the Huns. One of the chiefs of the Roxolani had formerly deserted the
standard of Hermanric, and the cruel tyrant had condemned the innocent
wife of the traitor to be torn asunder by wild horses. The brothers of
that unfortunate woman seized the favorable moment of revenge. The aged
king of the Goths languished some time after the dangerous wound which he
received from their daggers; but the conduct of the war was retarded by
his infirmities; and the public councils of the nation were distracted by
a spirit of jealousy and discord. His death, which has been imputed to his
own despair, left the reins of government in the hands of Withimer, who,
with the doubtful aid of some Scythian mercenaries, maintained the unequal
contest against the arms of the Huns and the Alani, till he was defeated
and slain in a decisive battle. The Ostrogoths submitted to their fate;
and the royal race of the Amali will hereafter be found among the subjects
of the haughty Attila. But the person of Witheric, the infant king, was
saved by the diligence of Alatheus and Saphrax; two warriors of approved
valor and fidelity, who, by cautious marches, conducted the independent
remains of the nation of the Ostrogoths towards the Danastus, or Niester;
a considerable river, which now separates the Turkish dominions from the
empire of Russia. On the banks of the Niester, the prudent Athanaric, more
attentive to his own than to the general safety, had fixed the camp of the
Visigoths; with the firm resolution of opposing the victorious Barbarians,
whom he thought it less advisable to provoke. The ordinary speed of the
Huns was checked by the weight of baggage, and the encumbrance of
captives; but their military skill deceived, and almost destroyed, the
army of Athanaric. While the Judge of the Visigoths defended the banks of
the Niester, he was encompassed and attacked by a numerous detachment of
cavalry, who, by the light of the moon, had passed the river in a fordable
place; and it was not without the utmost efforts of courage and conduct,
that he was able to effect his retreat towards the hilly country. The
undaunted general had already formed a new and judicious plan of defensive
war; and the strong lines, which he was preparing to construct between the
mountains, the Pruth, and the Danube, would have secured the extensive and
fertile territory that bears the modern name of Walachia, from the
destructive inroads of the Huns. But the hopes and measures of the Judge
of the Visigoths was soon disappointed, by the trembling impatience of his
dismayed countrymen; who were persuaded by their fears, that the
interposition of the Danube was the only barrier that could save them from
the rapid pursuit, and invincible valor, of the Barbarians of Scythia.
Under the command of Fritigern and Alavivus, the body of the nation
hastily advanced to the banks of the great river, and implored the
protection of the Roman emperor of the East. Athanaric himself, still
anxious to avoid the guilt of perjury, retired, with a band of faithful
followers, into the mountainous country of Caucaland; which appears to
have been guarded, and almost concealed, by the impenetrable forests of
Transylvania. *
After Valens had terminated the Gothic war with some appearance of glory
and success, he made a progress through his dominions of Asia, and at
length fixed his residence in the capital of Syria. The five years which
he spent at Antioch was employed to watch, from a secure distance, the
hostile designs of the Persian monarch; to check the depredations of the
Saracens and Isaurians; to enforce, by arguments more prevalent than those
of reason and eloquence, the belief of the Arian theology; and to satisfy
his anxious suspicions by the promiscuous execution of the innocent and
the guilty. But the attention of the emperor was most seriously engaged,
by the important intelligence which he received from the civil and
military officers who were intrusted with the defence of the Danube. He
was informed, that the North was agitated by a furious tempest; that the
irruption of the Huns, an unknown and monstrous race of savages, had
subverted the power of the Goths; and that the suppliant multitudes of
that warlike nation, whose pride was now humbled in the dust, covered a
space of many miles along the banks of the river. With outstretched arms,
and pathetic lamentations, they loudly deplored their past misfortunes and
their present danger; acknowledged that their only hope of safety was in
the clemency of the Roman government; and most solemnly protested, that if
the gracious liberality of the emperor would permit them to cultivate the
waste lands of Thrace, they should ever hold themselves bound, by the
strongest obligations of duty and gratitude, to obey the laws, and to
guard the limits, of the republic. These assurances were confirmed by the
ambassadors of the Goths, * who impatiently expected from the mouth of
Valens an answer that must finally determine the fate of their unhappy
countrymen. The emperor of the East was no longer guided by the wisdom and
authority of his elder brother, whose death happened towards the end of
the preceding year; and as the distressful situation of the Goths required
an instant and peremptory decision, he was deprived of the favorite
resources of feeble and timid minds, who consider the use of dilatory and
ambiguous measures as the most admirable efforts of consummate prudence.
As long as the same passions and interests subsist among mankind, the
questions of war and peace, of justice and policy, which were debated in
the councils of antiquity, will frequently present themselves as the
subject of modern deliberation. But the most experienced statesman of
Europe has never been summoned to consider the propriety, or the danger,
of admitting, or rejecting, an innumerable multitude of Barbarians, who
are driven by despair and hunger to solicit a settlement on the
territories of a civilized nation. When that important proposition, so
essentially connected with the public safety, was referred to the
ministers of Valens, they were perplexed and divided; but they soon
acquiesced in the flattering sentiment which seemed the most favorable to
the pride, the indolence, and the avarice of their sovereign. The slaves,
who were decorated with the titles of præfects and generals,
dissembled or disregarded the terrors of this national emigration; so
extremely different from the partial and accidental colonies, which had
been received on the extreme limits of the empire. But they applauded the
liberality of fortune, which had conducted, from the most distant
countries of the globe, a numerous and invincible army of strangers, to
defend the throne of Valens; who might now add to the royal treasures the
immense sums of gold supplied by the provincials to compensate their
annual proportion of recruits. The prayers of the Goths were granted, and
their service was accepted by the Imperial court: and orders were
immediately despatched to the civil and military governors of the Thracian
diocese, to make the necessary preparations for the passage and
subsistence of a great people, till a proper and sufficient territory
could be allotted for their future residence. The liberality of the
emperor was accompanied, however, with two harsh and rigorous conditions,
which prudence might justify on the side of the Romans; but which distress
alone could extort from the indignant Goths. Before they passed the
Danube, they were required to deliver their arms: and it was insisted,
that their children should be taken from them, and dispersed through the
provinces of Asia; where they might be civilized by the arts of education,
and serve as hostages to secure the fidelity of their parents.
During the suspense of a doubtful and distant negotiation, the impatient
Goths made some rash attempts to pass the Danube, without the permission
of the government, whose protection they had implored. Their motions were
strictly observed by the vigilance of the troops which were stationed
along the river and their foremost detachments were defeated with
considerable slaughter; yet such were the timid councils of the reign of
Valens, that the brave officers who had served their country in the
execution of their duty, were punished by the loss of their employments,
and narrowly escaped the loss of their heads. The Imperial mandate was at
length received for transporting over the Danube the whole body of the
Gothic nation; but the execution of this order was a task of labor and
difficulty. The stream of the Danube, which in those parts is above a mile
broad, had been swelled by incessant rains; and in this tumultuous
passage, many were swept away, and drowned, by the rapid violence of the
current. A large fleet of vessels, of boats, and of canoes, was provided;
many days and nights they passed and repassed with indefatigable toil; and
the most strenuous diligence was exerted by the officers of Valens, that
not a single Barbarian, of those who were reserved to subvert the
foundations of Rome, should be left on the opposite shore. It was thought
expedient that an accurate account should be taken of their numbers; but
the persons who were employed soon desisted, with amazement and dismay,
from the prosecution of the endless and impracticable task: and the
principal historian of the age most seriously affirms, that the prodigious
armies of Darius and Xerxes, which had so long been considered as the
fables of vain and credulous antiquity, were now justified, in the eyes of
mankind, by the evidence of fact and experience. A probable testimony has
fixed the number of the Gothic warriors at two hundred thousand men: and
if we can venture to add the just proportion of women, of children, and of
slaves, the whole mass of people which composed this formidable
emigration, must have amounted to near a million of persons, of both
sexes, and of all ages. The children of the Goths, those at least of a
distinguished rank, were separated from the multitude. They were
conducted, without delay, to the distant seats assigned for their
residence and education; and as the numerous train of hostages or captives
passed through the cities, their gay and splendid apparel, their robust
and martial figure, excited the surprise and envy of the Provincials. *
But the stipulation, the most offensive to the Goths, and the most
important to the Romans, was shamefully eluded. The Barbarians, who
considered their arms as the ensigns of honor and the pledges of safety,
were disposed to offer a price, which the lust or avarice of the Imperial
officers was easily tempted to accept. To preserve their arms, the haughty
warriors consented, with some reluctance, to prostitute their wives or
their daughters; the charms of a beauteous maid, or a comely boy, secured
the connivance of the inspectors; who sometimes cast an eye of
covetousness on the fringed carpets and linen garments of their new
allies, or who sacrificed their duty to the mean consideration of filling
their farms with cattle, and their houses with slaves. The Goths, with
arms in their hands, were permitted to enter the boats; and when their
strength was collected on the other side of the river, the immense camp
which was spread over the plains and the hills of the Lower Mæsia,
assumed a threatening and even hostile aspect. The leaders of the
Ostrogoths, Alatheus and Saphrax, the guardians of their infant king,
appeared soon afterwards on the Northern banks of the Danube; and
immediately despatched their ambassadors to the court of Antioch, to
solicit, with the same professions of allegiance and gratitude, the same
favor which had been granted to the suppliant Visigoths. The absolute
refusal of Valens suspended their progress, and discovered the repentance,
the suspicions, and the fears, of the Imperial council.
An undisciplined and unsettled nation of Barbarians required the firmest
temper, and the most dexterous management. The daily subsistence of near a
million of extraordinary subjects could be supplied only by constant and
skilful diligence, and might continually be interrupted by mistake or
accident. The insolence, or the indignation, of the Goths, if they
conceived themselves to be the objects either of fear or of contempt,
might urge them to the most desperate extremities; and the fortune of the
state seemed to depend on the prudence, as well as the integrity, of the
generals of Valens. At this important crisis, the military government of
Thrace was exercised by Lupicinus and Maximus, in whose venal minds the
slightest hope of private emolument outweighed every consideration of
public advantage; and whose guilt was only alleviated by their incapacity
of discerning the pernicious effects of their rash and criminal
administration. Instead of obeying the orders of their sovereign, and
satisfying, with decent liberality, the demands of the Goths, they levied
an ungenerous and oppressive tax on the wants of the hungry Barbarians.
The vilest food was sold at an extravagant price; and, in the room of
wholesome and substantial provisions, the markets were filled with the
flesh of dogs, and of unclean animals, who had died of disease. To obtain
the valuable acquisition of a pound of bread, the Goths resigned the
possession of an expensive, though serviceable, slave; and a small
quantity of meat was greedily purchased with ten pounds of a precious, but
useless metal, when their property was exhausted, they continued this
necessary traffic by the sale of their sons and daughters; and
notwithstanding the love of freedom, which animated every Gothic breast,
they submitted to the humiliating maxim, that it was better for their
children to be maintained in a servile condition, than to perish in a
state of wretched and helpless independence. The most lively resentment is
excited by the tyranny of pretended benefactors, who sternly exact the
debt of gratitude which they have cancelled by subsequent injuries: a
spirit of discontent insensibly arose in the camp of the Barbarians, who
pleaded, without success, the merit of their patient and dutiful behavior;
and loudly complained of the inhospitable treatment which they had
received from their new allies. They beheld around them the wealth and
plenty of a fertile province, in the midst of which they suffered the
intolerable hardships of artificial famine. But the means of relief, and
even of revenge, were in their hands; since the rapaciousness of their
tyrants had left to an injured people the possession and the use of arms.
The clamors of a multitude, untaught to disguise their sentiments,
announced the first symptoms of resistance, and alarmed the timid and
guilty minds of Lupicinus and Maximus. Those crafty ministers, who
substituted the cunning of temporary expedients to the wise and salutary
counsels of general policy, attempted to remove the Goths from their
dangerous station on the frontiers of the empire; and to disperse them, in
separate quarters of cantonment, through the interior provinces. As they
were conscious how ill they had deserved the respect, or confidence, of
the Barbarians, they diligently collected, from every side, a military
force, that might urge the tardy and reluctant march of a people, who had
not yet renounced the title, or the duties, of Roman subjects. But the
generals of Valens, while their attention was solely directed to the
discontented Visigoths, imprudently disarmed the ships and the
fortifications which constituted the defence of the Danube. The fatal
oversight was observed, and improved, by Alatheus and Saphrax, who
anxiously watched the favorable moment of escaping from the pursuit of the
Huns. By the help of such rafts and vessels as could be hastily procured,
the leaders of the Ostrogoths transported, without opposition, their king
and their army; and boldly fixed a hostile and independent camp on the
territories of the empire.
Under the name of Judges, Alavivus and Fritigern were the leaders of the
Visigoths in peace and war; and the authority which they derived from
their birth was ratified by the free consent of the nation. In a season of
tranquility, their power might have been equal, as well as their rank;
but, as soon as their countrymen were exasperated by hunger and
oppression, the superior abilities of Fritigern assumed the military
command, which he was qualified to exercise for the public welfare. He
restrained the impatient spirit of the Visigoths till the injuries and the
insults of their tyrants should justify their resistance in the opinion of
mankind: but he was not disposed to sacrifice any solid advantages for the
empty praise of justice and moderation. Sensible of the benefits which
would result from the union of the Gothic powers under the same standard,
he secretly cultivated the friendship of the Ostrogoths; and while he
professed an implicit obedience to the orders of the Roman generals, he
proceeded by slow marches towards Marcianopolis, the capital of the Lower
Mæsia, about seventy miles from the banks of the Danube. On that
fatal spot, the flames of discord and mutual hatred burst forth into a
dreadful conflagration. Lupicinus had invited the Gothic chiefs to a
splendid entertainment; and their martial train remained under arms at the
entrance of the palace. But the gates of the city were strictly guarded,
and the Barbarians were sternly excluded from the use of a plentiful
market, to which they asserted their equal claim of subjects and allies.
Their humble prayers were rejected with insolence and derision; and as
their patience was now exhausted, the townsmen, the soldiers, and the
Goths, were soon involved in a conflict of passionate altercation and
angry reproaches. A blow was imprudently given; a sword was hastily drawn;
and the first blood that was spilt in this accidental quarrel, became the
signal of a long and destructive war. In the midst of noise and brutal
intemperance, Lupicinus was informed, by a secret messenger, that many of
his soldiers were slain, and despoiled of their arms; and as he was
already inflamed by wine, and oppressed by sleep he issued a rash command,
that their death should be revenged by the massacre of the guards of
Fritigern and Alavivus. The clamorous shouts and dying groans apprised
Fritigern of his extreme danger; and, as he possessed the calm and
intrepid spirit of a hero, he saw that he was lost if he allowed a moment
of deliberation to the man who had so deeply injured him. "A trifling
dispute," said the Gothic leader, with a firm but gentle tone of voice,
"appears to have arisen between the two nations; but it may be productive
of the most dangerous consequences, unless the tumult is immediately
pacified by the assurance of our safety, and the authority of our
presence." At these words, Fritigern and his companions drew their swords,
opened their passage through the unresisting crowd, which filled the
palace, the streets, and the gates, of Marcianopolis, and, mounting their
horses, hastily vanished from the eyes of the astonished Romans. The
generals of the Goths were saluted by the fierce and joyful acclamations
of the camp; war was instantly resolved, and the resolution was executed
without delay: the banners of the nation were displayed according to the
custom of their ancestors; and the air resounded with the harsh and
mournful music of the Barbarian trumpet. The weak and guilty Lupicinus,
who had dared to provoke, who had neglected to destroy, and who still
presumed to despise, his formidable enemy, marched against the Goths, at
the head of such a military force as could be collected on this sudden
emergency. The Barbarians expected his approach about nine miles from
Marcianopolis; and on this occasion the talents of the general were found
to be of more prevailing efficacy than the weapons and discipline of the
troops. The valor of the Goths was so ably directed by the genius of
Fritigern, that they broke, by a close and vigorous attack, the ranks of
the Roman legions. Lupicinus left his arms and standards, his tribunes and
his bravest soldiers, on the field of battle; and their useless courage
served only to protect the ignominious flight of their leader. "That
successful day put an end to the distress of the Barbarians, and the
security of the Romans: from that day, the Goths, renouncing the
precarious condition of strangers and exiles, assumed the character of
citizens and masters, claimed an absolute dominion over the possessors of
land, and held, in their own right, the northern provinces of the empire,
which are bounded by the Danube." Such are the words of the Gothic
historian, who celebrates, with rude eloquence, the glory of his
countrymen. But the dominion of the Barbarians was exercised only for the
purposes of rapine and destruction. As they had been deprived, by the
ministers of the emperor, of the common benefits of nature, and the fair
intercourse of social life, they retaliated the injustice on the subjects
of the empire; and the crimes of Lupicinus were expiated by the ruin of
the peaceful husbandmen of Thrace, the conflagration of their villages,
and the massacre, or captivity, of their innocent families. The report of
the Gothic victory was soon diffused over the adjacent country; and while
it filled the minds of the Romans with terror and dismay, their own hasty
imprudence contributed to increase the forces of Fritigern, and the
calamities of the province. Some time before the great emigration, a
numerous body of Goths, under the command of Suerid and Colias, had been
received into the protection and service of the empire. They were encamped
under the walls of Hadrianople; but the ministers of Valens were anxious
to remove them beyond the Hellespont, at a distance from the dangerous
temptation which might so easily be communicated by the neighborhood, and
the success, of their countrymen. The respectful submission with which
they yielded to the order of their march, might be considered as a proof
of their fidelity; and their moderate request of a sufficient allowance of
provisions, and of a delay of only two days was expressed in the most
dutiful terms. But the first magistrate of Hadrianople, incensed by some
disorders which had been committed at his country-house, refused this
indulgence; and arming against them the inhabitants and manufacturers of a
populous city, he urged, with hostile threats, their instant departure.
The Barbarians stood silent and amazed, till they were exasperated by the
insulting clamors, and missile weapons, of the populace: but when patience
or contempt was fatigued, they crushed the undisciplined multitude,
inflicted many a shameful wound on the backs of their flying enemies, and
despoiled them of the splendid armor, which they were unworthy to bear.
The resemblance of their sufferings and their actions soon united this
victorious detachment to the nation of the Visigoths; the troops of Colias
and Suerid expected the approach of the great Fritigern, ranged themselves
under his standard, and signalized their ardor in the siege of
Hadrianople. But the resistance of the garrison informed the Barbarians,
that in the attack of regular fortifications, the efforts of unskillful
courage are seldom effectual. Their general acknowledged his error, raised
the siege, declared that "he was at peace with stone walls," and revenged
his disappointment on the adjacent country. He accepted, with pleasure,
the useful reenforcement of hardy workmen, who labored in the gold mines
of Thrace, for the emolument, and under the lash, of an unfeeling master:
and these new associates conducted the Barbarians, through the secret
paths, to the most sequestered places, which had been chosen to secure the
inhabitants, the cattle, and the magazines of corn. With the assistance of
such guides, nothing could remain impervious or inaccessible; resistance
was fatal; flight was impracticable; and the patient submission of
helpless innocence seldom found mercy from the Barbarian conqueror. In the
course of these depredations, a great number of the children of the Goths,
who had been sold into captivity, were restored to the embraces of their
afflicted parents; but these tender interviews, which might have revived
and cherished in their minds some sentiments of humanity, tended only to
stimulate their native fierceness by the desire of revenge. They listened,
with eager attention, to the complaints of their captive children, who had
suffered the most cruel indignities from the lustful or angry passions of
their masters, and the same cruelties, the same indignities, were severely
retaliated on the sons and daughters of the Romans.
The imprudence of Valens and his ministers had introduced into the heart
of the empire a nation of enemies; but the Visigoths might even yet have
been reconciled, by the manly confession of past errors, and the sincere
performance of former engagements. These healing and temperate measures
seemed to concur with the timorous disposition of the sovereign of the
East: but, on this occasion alone, Valens was brave; and his unseasonable
bravery was fatal to himself and to his subjects. He declared his
intention of marching from Antioch to Constantinople, to subdue this
dangerous rebellion; and, as he was not ignorant of the difficulties of
the enterprise, he solicited the assistance of his nephew, the emperor
Gratian, who commanded all the forces of the West. The veteran troops were
hastily recalled from the defence of Armenia; that important frontier was
abandoned to the discretion of Sapor; and the immediate conduct of the
Gothic war was intrusted, during the absence of Valens, to his lieutenants
Trajan and Profuturus, two generals who indulged themselves in a very
false and favorable opinion of their own abilities. On their arrival in
Thrace, they were joined by Richomer, count of the domestics; and the
auxiliaries of the West, that marched under his banner, were composed of
the Gallic legions, reduced indeed, by a spirit of desertion, to the vain
appearances of strength and numbers. In a council of war, which was
influenced by pride, rather than by reason, it was resolved to seek, and
to encounter, the Barbarians, who lay encamped in the spacious and fertile
meadows, near the most southern of the six mouths of the Danube. Their
camp was surrounded by the usual fortification of wagons; and the
Barbarians, secure within the vast circle of the enclosure, enjoyed the
fruits of their valor, and the spoils of the province. In the midst of
riotous intemperance, the watchful Fritigern observed the motions, and
penetrated the designs, of the Romans. He perceived, that the numbers of
the enemy were continually increasing: and, as he understood their
intention of attacking his rear, as soon as the scarcity of forage should
oblige him to remove his camp, he recalled to their standard his predatory
detachments, which covered the adjacent country. As soon as they descried
the flaming beacons, they obeyed, with incredible speed, the signal of
their leader: the camp was filled with the martial crowd of Barbarians;
their impatient clamors demanded the battle, and their tumultuous zeal was
approved and animated by the spirit of their chiefs. The evening was
already far advanced; and the two armies prepared themselves for the
approaching combat, which was deferred only till the dawn of day. While
the trumpets sounded to arms, the undaunted courage of the Goths was
confirmed by the mutual obligation of a solemn oath; and as they advanced
to meet the enemy, the rude songs, which celebrated the glory of their
forefathers, were mingled with their fierce and dissonant outcries, and
opposed to the artificial harmony of the Roman shout. Some military skill
was displayed by Fritigern to gain the advantage of a commanding eminence;
but the bloody conflict, which began and ended with the light, was
maintained on either side, by the personal and obstinate efforts of
strength, valor, and agility. The legions of Armenia supported their fame
in arms; but they were oppressed by the irresistible weight of the hostile
multitude the left wing of the Romans was thrown into disorder and the
field was strewed with their mangled carcasses. This partial defeat was
balanced, however, by partial success; and when the two armies, at a late
hour of the evening, retreated to their respective camps, neither of them
could claim the honors, or the effects, of a decisive victory. The real
loss was more severely felt by the Romans, in proportion to the smallness
of their numbers; but the Goths were so deeply confounded and dismayed by
this vigorous, and perhaps unexpected, resistance, that they remained
seven days within the circle of their fortifications. Such funeral rites,
as the circumstances of time and place would admit, were piously
discharged to some officers of distinguished rank; but the indiscriminate
vulgar was left unburied on the plain. Their flesh was greedily devoured
by the birds of prey, who in that age enjoyed very frequent and delicious
feasts; and several years afterwards the white and naked bones, which
covered the wide extent of the fields, presented to the eyes of Ammianus a
dreadful monument of the battle of Salices.
The progress of the Goths had been checked by the doubtful event of that
bloody day; and the Imperial generals, whose army would have been consumed
by the repetition of such a contest, embraced the more rational plan of
destroying the Barbarians by the wants and pressure of their own
multitudes. They prepared to confine the Visigoths in the narrow angle of
land between the Danube, the desert of Scythia, and the mountains of Hæmus,
till their strength and spirit should be insensibly wasted by the
inevitable operation of famine. The design was prosecuted with some
conduct and success: the Barbarians had almost exhausted their own
magazines, and the harvests of the country; and the diligence of
Saturninus, the master-general of the cavalry, was employed to improve the
strength, and to contract the extent, of the Roman fortifications. His
labors were interrupted by the alarming intelligence, that new swarms of
Barbarians had passed the unguarded Danube, either to support the cause,
or to imitate the example, of Fritigern. The just apprehension, that he
himself might be surrounded, and overwhelmed, by the arms of hostile and
unknown nations, compelled Saturninus to relinquish the siege of the
Gothic camp; and the indignant Visigoths, breaking from their confinement,
satiated their hunger and revenge by the repeated devastation of the
fruitful country, which extends above three hundred miles from the banks
of the Danube to the straits of the Hellespont. The sagacious Fritigern
had successfully appealed to the passions, as well as to the interest, of
his Barbarian allies; and the love of rapine, and the hatred of Rome,
seconded, or even prevented, the eloquence of his ambassadors. He cemented
a strict and useful alliance with the great body of his countrymen, who
obeyed Alatheus and Saphrax as the guardians of their infant king: the
long animosity of rival tribes was suspended by the sense of their common
interest; the independent part of the nation was associated under one
standard; and the chiefs of the Ostrogoths appear to have yielded to the
superior genius of the general of the Visigoths. He obtained the
formidable aid of the Taifalæ, * whose military renown was disgraced
and polluted by the public infamy of their domestic manners. Every youth,
on his entrance into the world, was united by the ties of honorable
friendship, and brutal love, to some warrior of the tribe; nor could he
hope to be released from this unnatural connection, till he had approved
his manhood by slaying, in single combat, a huge bear, or a wild boar of
the forest. But the most powerful auxiliaries of the Goths were drawn from
the camp of those enemies who had expelled them from their native seats.
The loose subordination, and extensive possessions, of the Huns and the
Alani, delayed the conquests, and distracted the councils, of that
victorious people. Several of the hords were allured by the liberal
promises of Fritigern; and the rapid cavalry of Scythia added weight and
energy to the steady and strenuous efforts of the Gothic infantry. The
Sarmatians, who could never forgive the successor of Valentinian, enjoyed
and increased the general confusion; and a seasonable irruption of the
Alemanni, into the provinces of Gaul, engaged the attention, and diverted
the forces, of the emperor of the West.
One of the most dangerous inconveniences of the introduction of the
Barbarians into the army and the palace, was sensibly felt in their
correspondence with their hostile countrymen; to whom they imprudently, or
maliciously, revealed the weakness of the Roman empire. A soldier, of the
lifeguards of Gratian, was of the nation of the Alemanni, and of the tribe
of the Lentienses, who dwelt beyond the Lake of Constance. Some domestic
business obliged him to request a leave of absence. In a short visit to
his family and friends, he was exposed to their curious inquiries: and the
vanity of the loquacious soldier tempted him to display his intimate
acquaintance with the secrets of the state, and the designs of his master.
The intelligence, that Gratian was preparing to lead the military force of
Gaul, and of the West, to the assistance of his uncle Valens, pointed out
to the restless spirit of the Alemanni the moment, and the mode, of a
successful invasion. The enterprise of some light detachments, who, in the
month of February, passed the Rhine upon the ice, was the prelude of a
more important war. The boldest hopes of rapine, perhaps of conquest,
outweighed the considerations of timid prudence, or national faith. Every
forest, and every village, poured forth a band of hardy adventurers; and
the great army of the Alemanni, which, on their approach, was estimated at
forty thousand men by the fears of the people, was afterwards magnified to
the number of seventy thousand by the vain and credulous flattery of the
Imperial court. The legions, which had been ordered to march into
Pannonia, were immediately recalled, or detained, for the defence of Gaul;
the military command was divided between Nanienus and Mellobaudes; and the
youthful emperor, though he respected the long experience and sober wisdom
of the former, was much more inclined to admire, and to follow, the
martial ardor of his colleague; who was allowed to unite the incompatible
characters of count of the domestics, and of king of the Franks. His rival
Priarius, king of the Alemanni, was guided, or rather impelled, by the
same headstrong valor; and as their troops were animated by the spirit of
their leaders, they met, they saw, they encountered each other, near the
town of Argentaria, or Colmar, in the plains of Alsace. The glory of the
day was justly ascribed to the missile weapons, and well-practised
evolutions, of the Roman soldiers; the Alemanni, who long maintained their
ground, were slaughtered with unrelenting fury; five thousand only of the
Barbarians escaped to the woods and mountains; and the glorious death of
their king on the field of battle saved him from the reproaches of the
people, who are always disposed to accuse the justice, or policy, of an
unsuccessful war. After this signal victory, which secured the peace of
Gaul, and asserted the honor of the Roman arms, the emperor Gratian
appeared to proceed without delay on his Eastern expedition; but as he
approached the confines of the Alemanni, he suddenly inclined to the left,
surprised them by his unexpected passage of the Rhine, and boldly advanced
into the heart of their country. The Barbarians opposed to his progress
the obstacles of nature and of courage; and still continued to retreat,
from one hill to another, till they were satisfied, by repeated trials, of
the power and perseverance of their enemies. Their submission was accepted
as a proof, not indeed of their sincere repentance, but of their actual
distress; and a select number of their brave and robust youth was exacted
from the faithless nation, as the most substantial pledge of their future
moderation. The subjects of the empire, who had so often experienced that
the Alemanni could neither be subdued by arms, nor restrained by treaties,
might not promise themselves any solid or lasting tranquillity: but they
discovered, in the virtues of their young sovereign, the prospect of a
long and auspicious reign. When the legions climbed the mountains, and
scaled the fortifications of the Barbarians, the valor of Gratian was
distinguished in the foremost ranks; and the gilt and variegated armor of
his guards was pierced and shattered by the blows which they had received
in their constant attachment to the person of their sovereign. At the age
of nineteen, the son of Valentinian seemed to possess the talents of peace
and war; and his personal success against the Alemanni was interpreted as
a sure presage of his Gothic triumphs.
While Gratian deserved and enjoyed the applause of his subjects, the
emperor Valens, who, at length, had removed his court and army from
Antioch, was received by the people of Constantinople as the author of the
public calamity. Before he had reposed himself ten days in the capital, he
was urged by the licentious clamors of the Hippodrome to march against the
Barbarians, whom he had invited into his dominions; and the citizens, who
are always brave at a distance from any real danger, declared, with
confidence, that, if they were supplied with arms, they
alone would undertake to deliver the province from the ravages of an
insulting foe. The vain reproaches of an ignorant multitude hastened the
downfall of the Roman empire; they provoked the desperate rashness of
Valens; who did not find, either in his reputation or in his mind, any
motives to support with firmness the public contempt. He was soon
persuaded, by the successful achievements of his lieutenants, to despise
the power of the Goths, who, by the diligence of Fritigern, were now
collected in the neighborhood of Hadrianople. The march of the Taifalæ
had been intercepted by the valiant Frigerid: the king of those licentious
Barbarians was slain in battle; and the suppliant captives were sent into
distant exile to cultivate the lands of Italy, which were assigned for
their settlement in the vacant territories of Modena and Parma. The
exploits of Sebastian, who was recently engaged in the service of Valens,
and promoted to the rank of master-general of the infantry, were still
more honorable to himself, and useful to the republic. He obtained the
permission of selecting three hundred soldiers from each of the legions;
and this separate detachment soon acquired the spirit of discipline, and
the exercise of arms, which were almost forgotten under the reign of
Valens. By the vigor and conduct of Sebastian, a large body of the Goths
were surprised in their camp; and the immense spoil, which was recovered
from their hands, filled the city of Hadrianople, and the adjacent plain.
The splendid narratives, which the general transmitted of his own
exploits, alarmed the Imperial court by the appearance of superior merit;
and though he cautiously insisted on the difficulties of the Gothic war,
his valor was praised, his advice was rejected; and Valens, who listened
with pride and pleasure to the flattering suggestions of the eunuchs of
the palace, was impatient to seize the glory of an easy and assured
conquest. His army was strengthened by a numerous reenforcement of
veterans; and his march from Constantinople to Hadrianople was conducted
with so much military skill, that he prevented the activity of the
Barbarians, who designed to occupy the intermediate defiles, and to
intercept either the troops themselves, or their convoys of provisions.
The camp of Valens, which he pitched under the walls of Hadrianople, was
fortified, according to the practice of the Romans, with a ditch and
rampart; and a most important council was summoned, to decide the fate of
the emperor and of the empire. The party of reason and of delay was
strenuously maintained by Victor, who had corrected, by the lessons of
experience, the native fierceness of the Sarmatian character; while
Sebastian, with the flexible and obsequious eloquence of a courtier,
represented every precaution, and every measure, that implied a doubt of
immediate victory, as unworthy of the courage and majesty of their
invincible monarch. The ruin of Valens was precipitated by the deceitful
arts of Fritigern, and the prudent admonitions of the emperor of the West.
The advantages of negotiating in the midst of war were perfectly
understood by the general of the Barbarians; and a Christian ecclesiastic
was despatched, as the holy minister of peace, to penetrate, and to
perplex, the councils of the enemy. The misfortunes, as well as the
provocations, of the Gothic nation, were forcibly and truly described by
their ambassador; who protested, in the name of Fritigern, that he was
still disposed to lay down his arms, or to employ them only in the defence
of the empire; if he could secure for his wandering countrymen a tranquil
settlement on the waste lands of Thrace, and a sufficient allowance of
corn and cattle. But he added, in a whisper of confidential friendship,
that the exasperated Barbarians were averse to these reasonable
conditions; and that Fritigern was doubtful whether he could accomplish
the conclusion of the treaty, unless he found himself supported by the
presence and terrors of an Imperial army. About the same time, Count
Richomer returned from the West to announce the defeat and submission of
the Alemanni, to inform Valens that his nephew advanced by rapid marches
at the head of the veteran and victorious legions of Gaul, and to request,
in the name of Gratian and of the republic, that every dangerous and
decisive measure might be suspended, till the junction of the two emperors
should insure the success of the Gothic war. But the feeble sovereign of
the East was actuated only by the fatal illusions of pride and jealousy.
He disdained the importunate advice; he rejected the humiliating aid; he
secretly compared the ignominious, at least the inglorious, period of his
own reign, with the fame of a beardless youth; and Valens rushed into the
field, to erect his imaginary trophy, before the diligence of his
colleague could usurp any share of the triumphs of the day.
On the ninth of August, a day which has deserved to be marked among the
most inauspicious of the Roman Calendar, the emperor Valens, leaving,
under a strong guard, his baggage and military treasure, marched from
Hadrianople to attack the Goths, who were encamped about twelve miles from
the city. By some mistake of the orders, or some ignorance of the ground,
the right wing, or column of cavalry arrived in sight of the enemy, whilst
the left was still at a considerable distance; the soldiers were
compelled, in the sultry heat of summer, to precipitate their pace; and
the line of battle was formed with tedious confusion and irregular delay.
The Gothic cavalry had been detached to forage in the adjacent country;
and Fritigern still continued to practise his customary arts. He
despatched messengers of peace, made proposals, required hostages, and
wasted the hours, till the Romans, exposed without shelter to the burning
rays of the sun, were exhausted by thirst, hunger, and intolerable
fatigue. The emperor was persuaded to send an ambassador to the Gothic
camp; the zeal of Richomer, who alone had courage to accept the dangerous
commission, was applauded; and the count of the domestics, adorned with
the splendid ensigns of his dignity, had proceeded some way in the space
between the two armies, when he was suddenly recalled by the alarm of
battle. The hasty and imprudent attack was made by Bacurius the Iberian,
who commanded a body of archers and targiteers; and as they advanced with
rashness, they retreated with loss and disgrace. In the same moment, the
flying squadrons of Alatheus and Saphrax, whose return was anxiously
expected by the general of the Goths, descended like a whirlwind from the
hills, swept across the plain, and added new terrors to the tumultuous,
but irresistible charge of the Barbarian host. The event of the battle of
Hadrianople, so fatal to Valens and to the empire, may be described in a
few words: the Roman cavalry fled; the infantry was abandoned, surrounded,
and cut in pieces. The most skilful evolutions, the firmest courage, are
scarcely sufficient to extricate a body of foot, encompassed, on an open
plain, by superior numbers of horse; but the troops of Valens, oppressed
by the weight of the enemy and their own fears, were crowded into a narrow
space, where it was impossible for them to extend their ranks, or even to
use, with effect, their swords and javelins. In the midst of tumult, of
slaughter, and of dismay, the emperor, deserted by his guards and wounded,
as it was supposed, with an arrow, sought protection among the Lancearii
and the Mattiarii, who still maintained their ground with some appearance
of order and firmness. His faithful generals, Trajan and Victor, who
perceived his danger, loudly exclaimed that all was lost, unless the
person of the emperor could be saved. Some troops, animated by their
exhortation, advanced to his relief: they found only a bloody spot,
covered with a heap of broken arms and mangled bodies, without being able
to discover their unfortunate prince, either among the living or the dead.
Their search could not indeed be successful, if there is any truth in the
circumstances with which some historians have related the death of the
emperor. By the care of his attendants, Valens was removed from the field
of battle to a neighboring cottage, where they attempted to dress his
wound, and to provide for his future safety. But this humble retreat was
instantly surrounded by the enemy: they tried to force the door, they were
provoked by a discharge of arrows from the roof, till at length, impatient
of delay, they set fire to a pile of dry fagots, and consumed the cottage
with the Roman emperor and his train. Valens perished in the flames; and a
youth, who dropped from the window, alone escaped, to attest the
melancholy tale, and to inform the Goths of the inestimable prize which
they had lost by their own rashness. A great number of brave and
distinguished officers perished in the battle of Hadrianople, which
equalled in the actual loss, and far surpassed in the fatal consequences,
the misfortune which Rome had formerly sustained in the fields of Cannæ.
Two master-generals of the cavalry and infantry, two great officers of the
palace, and thirty-five tribunes, were found among the slain; and the
death of Sebastian might satisfy the world, that he was the victim, as
well as the author, of the public calamity. Above two thirds of the Roman
army were destroyed: and the darkness of the night was esteemed a very
favorable circumstance, as it served to conceal the flight of the
multitude, and to protect the more orderly retreat of Victor and Richomer,
who alone, amidst the general consternation, maintained the advantage of
calm courage and regular discipline.
While the impressions of grief and terror were still recent in the minds
of men, the most celebrated rhetorician of the age composed the funeral
oration of a vanquished army, and of an unpopular prince, whose throne was
already occupied by a stranger. "There are not wanting," says the candid
Libanius, "those who arraign the prudence of the emperor, or who impute
the public misfortune to the want of courage and discipline in the troops.
For my own part, I reverence the memory of their former exploits: I
reverence the glorious death, which they bravely received, standing, and
fighting in their ranks: I reverence the field of battle, stained with
their blood, and the blood of the Barbarians.
Those honorable marks have been already washed away by the rains; but the
lofty monuments of their bones, the bones of generals, of centurions, and
of valiant warriors, claim a longer period of duration. The king himself
fought and fell in the foremost ranks of the battle. His attendants
presented him with the fleetest horses of the Imperial stable, that would
soon have carried him beyond the pursuit of the enemy. They vainly pressed
him to reserve his important life for the future service of the republic.
He still declared that he was unworthy to survive so many of the bravest
and most faithful of his subjects; and the monarch was nobly buried under
a mountain of the slain. Let none, therefore, presume to ascribe the
victory of the Barbarians to the fear, the weakness, or the imprudence, of
the Roman troops. The chiefs and the soldiers were animated by the virtue
of their ancestors, whom they equalled in discipline and the arts of war.
Their generous emulation was supported by the love of glory, which
prompted them to contend at the same time with heat and thirst, with fire
and the sword; and cheerfully to embrace an honorable death, as their
refuge against flight and infamy. The indignation of the gods has been the
only cause of the success of our enemies." The truth of history may
disclaim some parts of this panegyric, which cannot strictly be reconciled
with the character of Valens, or the circumstances of the battle: but the
fairest commendation is due to the eloquence, and still more to the
generosity, of the sophist of Antioch.
The pride of the Goths was elated by this memorable victory; but their
avarice was disappointed by the mortifying discovery, that the richest
part of the Imperial spoil had been within the walls of Hadrianople. They
hastened to possess the reward of their valor; but they were encountered
by the remains of a vanquished army, with an intrepid resolution, which
was the effect of their despair, and the only hope of their safety. The
walls of the city, and the ramparts of the adjacent camp, were lined with
military engines, that threw stones of an enormous weight; and astonished
the ignorant Barbarians by the noise, and velocity, still more than by the
real effects, of the discharge. The soldiers, the citizens, the
provincials, the domestics of the palace, were united in the danger, and
in the defence: the furious assault of the Goths was repulsed; their
secret arts of treachery and treason were discovered; and, after an
obstinate conflict of many hours, they retired to their tents; convinced,
by experience, that it would be far more advisable to observe the treaty,
which their sagacious leader had tacitly stipulated with the
fortifications of great and populous cities. After the hasty and impolitic
massacre of three hundred deserters, an act of justice extremely useful to
the discipline of the Roman armies, the Goths indignantly raised the siege
of Hadrianople. The scene of war and tumult was instantly converted into a
silent solitude: the multitude suddenly disappeared; the secret paths of
the woods and mountains were marked with the footsteps of the trembling
fugitives, who sought a refuge in the distant cities of Illyricum and
Macedonia; and the faithful officers of the household, and the treasury,
cautiously proceeded in search of the emperor, of whose death they were
still ignorant. The tide of the Gothic inundation rolled from the walls of
Hadrianople to the suburbs of Constantinople. The Barbarians were
surprised with the splendid appearance of the capital of the East, the
height and extent of the walls, the myriads of wealthy and affrighted
citizens who crowded the ramparts, and the various prospect of the sea and
land. While they gazed with hopeless desire on the inaccessible beauties
of Constantinople, a sally was made from one of the gates by a party of
Saracens, who had been fortunately engaged in the service of Valens. The
cavalry of Scythia was forced to yield to the admirable swiftness and
spirit of the Arabian horses: their riders were skilled in the evolutions
of irregular war; and the Northern Barbarians were astonished and
dismayed, by the inhuman ferocity of the Barbarians of the South. A Gothic
soldier was slain by the dagger of an Arab; and the hairy, naked savage,
applying his lips to the wound, expressed a horrid delight, while he
sucked the blood of his vanquished enemy. The army of the Goths, laden
with the spoils of the wealthy suburbs and the adjacent territory, slowly
moved, from the Bosphorus, to the mountains which form the western
boundary of Thrace. The important pass of Succi was betrayed by the fear,
or the misconduct, of Maurus; and the Barbarians, who no longer had any
resistance to apprehend from the scattered and vanquished troops of the
East, spread themselves over the face of a fertile and cultivated country,
as far as the confines of Italy and the Hadriatic Sea.
The Romans, who so coolly, and so concisely, mention the acts of justice
which were exercised by the legions, reserve their compassion, and their
eloquence, for their own sufferings, when the provinces were invaded, and
desolated, by the arms of the successful Barbarians. The simple
circumstantial narrative (did such a narrative exist) of the ruin of a
single town, of the misfortunes of a single family, might exhibit an
interesting and instructive picture of human manners: but the tedious
repetition of vague and declamatory complaints would fatigue the attention
of the most patient reader. The same censure may be applied, though not
perhaps in an equal degree, to the profane, and the ecclesiastical,
writers of this unhappy period; that their minds were inflamed by popular
and religious animosity; and that the true size and color of every object
is falsified by the exaggerations of their corrupt eloquence. The vehement
Jerom might justly deplore the calamities inflicted by the Goths, and
their barbarous allies, on his native country of Pannonia, and the wide
extent of the provinces, from the walls of Constantinople to the foot of
the Julian Alps; the rapes, the massacres, the conflagrations; and, above
all, the profanation of the churches, that were turned into stables, and
the contemptuous treatment of the relics of holy martyrs. But the Saint is
surely transported beyond the limits of nature and history, when he
affirms, "that, in those desert countries, nothing was left except the sky
and the earth; that, after the destruction of the cities, and the
extirpation of the human race, the land was overgrown with thick forests
and inextricable brambles; and that the universal desolation, announced by
the prophet Zephaniah, was accomplished, in the scarcity of the beasts,
the birds, and even of the fish." These complaints were pronounced about
twenty years after the death of Valens; and the Illyrian provinces, which
were constantly exposed to the invasion and passage of the Barbarians,
still continued, after a calamitous period of ten centuries, to supply new
materials for rapine and destruction. Could it even be supposed, that a
large tract of country had been left without cultivation and without
inhabitants, the consequences might not have been so fatal to the inferior
productions of animated nature. The useful and feeble animals, which are
nourished by the hand of man, might suffer and perish, if they were
deprived of his protection; but the beasts of the forest, his enemies or
his victims, would multiply in the free and undisturbed possession of
their solitary domain. The various tribes that people the air, or the
waters, are still less connected with the fate of the human species; and
it is highly probable that the fish of the Danube would have felt more
terror and distress, from the approach of a voracious pike, than from the
hostile inroad of a Gothic army.
Whatever may have been the just measure of the calamities of Europe, there
was reason to fear that the same calamities would soon extend to the
peaceful countries of Asia. The sons of the Goths had been judiciously
distributed through the cities of the East; and the arts of education were
employed to polish, and subdue, the native fierceness of their temper. In
the space of about twelve years, their numbers had continually increased;
and the children, who, in the first emigration, were sent over the
Hellespont, had attained, with rapid growth, the strength and spirit of
perfect manhood. It was impossible to conceal from their knowledge the
events of the Gothic war; and, as those daring youths had not studied the
language of dissimulation, they betrayed their wish, their desire, perhaps
their intention, to emulate the glorious example of their fathers. The
danger of the times seemed to justify the jealous suspicions of the
provincials; and these suspicions were admitted as unquestionable
evidence, that the Goths of Asia had formed a secret and dangerous
conspiracy against the public safety. The death of Valens had left the
East without a sovereign; and Julius, who filled the important station of
master-general of the troops, with a high reputation of diligence and
ability, thought it his duty to consult the senate of Constantinople;
which he considered, during the vacancy of the throne, as the
representative council of the nation. As soon as he had obtained the
discretionary power of acting as he should judge most expedient for the
good of the republic, he assembled the principal officers, and privately
concerted effectual measures for the execution of his bloody design. An
order was immediately promulgated, that, on a stated day, the Gothic youth
should assemble in the capital cities of their respective provinces; and,
as a report was industriously circulated, that they were summoned to
receive a liberal gift of lands and money, the pleasing hope allayed the
fury of their resentment, and, perhaps, suspended the motions of the
conspiracy. On the appointed day, the unarmed crowd of the Gothic youth
was carefully collected in the square or Forum; the streets and avenues
were occupied by the Roman troops, and the roofs of the houses were
covered with archers and slingers. At the same hour, in all the cities of
the East, the signal was given of indiscriminate slaughter; and the
provinces of Asia were delivered by the cruel prudence of Julius, from a
domestic enemy, who, in a few months, might have carried fire and sword
from the Hellespont to the Euphrates. The urgent consideration of the
public safety may undoubtedly authorize the violation of every positive
law. How far that, or any other, consideration may operate to dissolve the
natural obligations of humanity and justice, is a doctrine of which I
still desire to remain ignorant.
The emperor Gratian was far advanced on his march towards the plains of
Hadrianople, when he was informed, at first by the confused voice of fame,
and afterwards by the more accurate reports of Victor and Richomer, that
his impatient colleague had been slain in battle, and that two thirds of
the Roman army were exterminated by the sword of the victorious Goths.
Whatever resentment the rash and jealous vanity of his uncle might
deserve, the resentment of a generous mind is easily subdued by the softer
emotions of grief and compassion; and even the sense of pity was soon lost
in the serious and alarming consideration of the state of the republic.
Gratian was too late to assist, he was too weak to revenge, his
unfortunate colleague; and the valiant and modest youth felt himself
unequal to the support of a sinking world. A formidable tempest of the
Barbarians of Germany seemed ready to burst over the provinces of Gaul;
and the mind of Gratian was oppressed and distracted by the administration
of the Western empire. In this important crisis, the government of the
East, and the conduct of the Gothic war, required the undivided attention
of a hero and a statesman. A subject invested with such ample command
would not long have preserved his fidelity to a distant benefactor; and
the Imperial council embraced the wise and manly resolution of conferring
an obligation, rather than of yielding to an insult. It was the wish of
Gratian to bestow the purple as the reward of virtue; but, at the age of
nineteen, it is not easy for a prince, educated in the supreme rank, to
understand the true characters of his ministers and generals. He attempted
to weigh, with an impartial hand, their various merits and defects; and,
whilst he checked the rash confidence of ambition, he distrusted the
cautious wisdom which despaired of the republic. As each moment of delay
diminished something of the power and resources of the future sovereign of
the East, the situation of the times would not allow a tedious debate. The
choice of Gratian was soon declared in favor of an exile, whose father,
only three years before, had suffered, under the sanction of his
authority, an unjust and ignominious death. The great Theodosius, a name
celebrated in history, and dear to the Catholic church, was summoned to
the Imperial court, which had gradually retreated from the confines of
Thrace to the more secure station of Sirmium. Five months after the death
of Valens, the emperor Gratian produced before the assembled troops
his colleague and their
master; who, after a modest, perhaps a sincere, resistance, was compelled
to accept, amidst the general acclamations, the diadem, the purple, and
the equal title of Augustus. The provinces of Thrace, Asia, and Egypt,
over which Valens had reigned, were resigned to the administration of the
new emperor; but, as he was specially intrusted with the conduct of the
Gothic war, the Illyrian præfecture was dismembered; and the two
great dioceses of Dacia and Macedonia were added to the dominions of the
Eastern empire.
The same province, and perhaps the same city, which had given to the
throne the virtues of Trajan, and the talents of Hadrian, was the original
seat of another family of Spaniards, who, in a less fortunate age,
possessed, near fourscore years, the declining empire of Rome. They
emerged from the obscurity of municipal honors by the active spirit of the
elder Theodosius, a general whose exploits in Britain and Africa have
formed one of the most splendid parts of the annals of Valentinian. The
son of that general, who likewise bore the name of Theodosius, was
educated, by skilful preceptors, in the liberal studies of youth; but he
was instructed in the art of war by the tender care and severe discipline
of his father. Under the standard of such a leader, young Theodosius
sought glory and knowledge, in the most distant scenes of military action;
inured his constitution to the difference of seasons and climates;
distinguished his valor by sea and land; and observed the various warfare
of the Scots, the Saxons, and the Moors. His own merit, and the
recommendation of the conqueror of Africa, soon raised him to a separate
command; and, in the station of Duke of Mæsia, he vanquished an army
of Sarmatians; saved the province; deserved the love of the soldiers; and
provoked the envy of the court. His rising fortunes were soon blasted by
the disgrace and execution of his illustrious father; and Theodosius
obtained, as a favor, the permission of retiring to a private life in his
native province of Spain. He displayed a firm and temperate character in
the ease with which he adapted himself to this new situation. His time was
almost equally divided between the town and country; the spirit, which had
animated his public conduct, was shown in the active and affectionate
performance of every social duty; and the diligence of the soldier was
profitably converted to the improvement of his ample patrimony, which lay
between Valladolid and Segovia, in the midst of a fruitful district, still
famous for a most exquisite breed of sheep. From the innocent, but humble
labors of his farm, Theodosius was transported, in less than four months,
to the throne of the Eastern empire; and the whole period of the history
of the world will not perhaps afford a similar example, of an elevation at
the same time so pure and so honorable. The princes who peaceably inherit
the sceptre of their fathers, claim and enjoy a legal right, the more
secure as it is absolutely distinct from the merits of their personal
characters. The subjects, who, in a monarchy, or a popular state, acquire
the possession of supreme power, may have raised themselves, by the
superiority either of genius or virtue, above the heads of their equals;
but their virtue is seldom exempt from ambition; and the cause of the
successful candidate is frequently stained by the guilt of conspiracy, or
civil war. Even in those governments which allow the reigning monarch to
declare a colleague or a successor, his partial choice, which may be
influenced by the blindest passions, is often directed to an unworthy
object But the most suspicious malignity cannot ascribe to Theodosius, in
his obscure solitude of Caucha, the arts, the desires, or even the hopes,
of an ambitious statesman; and the name of the Exile would long since have
been forgotten, if his genuine and distinguished virtues had not left a
deep impression in the Imperial court. During the season of prosperity, he
had been neglected; but, in the public distress, his superior merit was
universally felt and acknowledged. What confidence must have been reposed
in his integrity, since Gratian could trust, that a pious son would
forgive, for the sake of the republic, the murder of his father! What
expectations must have been formed of his abilities to encourage the hope,
that a single man could save, and restore, the empire of the East!
Theodosius was invested with the purple in the thirty-third year of his
age. The vulgar gazed with admiration on the manly beauty of his face, and
the graceful majesty of his person, which they were pleased to compare
with the pictures and medals of the emperor Trajan; whilst intelligent
observers discovered, in the qualities of his heart and understanding, a
more important resemblance to the best and greatest of the Roman princes.
It is not without the most sincere regret, that I must now take leave of
an accurate and faithful guide, who has composed the history of his own
times, without indulging the prejudices and passions, which usually affect
the mind of a contemporary. Ammianus Marcellinus, who terminates his
useful work with the defeat and death of Valens, recommends the more
glorious subject of the ensuing reign to the youthful vigor and eloquence
of the rising generation. The rising generation was not disposed to accept
his advice or to imitate his example; and, in the study of the reign of
Theodosius, we are reduced to illustrate the partial narrative of Zosimus,
by the obscure hints of fragments and chronicles, by the figurative style
of poetry or panegyric, and by the precarious assistance of the
ecclesiastical writers, who, in the heat of religious faction, are apt to
despise the profane virtues of sincerity and moderation. Conscious of
these disadvantages, which will continue to involve a considerable portion
of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, I shall proceed with doubtful
and timorous steps. Yet I may boldly pronounce, that the battle of
Hadrianople was never revenged by any signal or decisive victory of
Theodosius over the Barbarians: and the expressive silence of his venal
orators may be confirmed by the observation of the condition and
circumstances of the times. The fabric of a mighty state, which has been
reared by the labors of successive ages, could not be overturned by the
misfortune of a single day, if the fatal power of the imagination did not
exaggerate the real measure of the calamity. The loss of forty thousand
Romans, who fell in the plains of Hadrianople, might have been soon
recruited in the populous provinces of the East, which contained so many
millions of inhabitants. The courage of a soldier is found to be the
cheapest, and most common, quality of human nature; and sufficient skill
to encounter an undisciplined foe might have been speedily taught by the
care of the surviving centurions. If the Barbarians were mounted on the
horses, and equipped with the armor, of their vanquished enemies, the
numerous studs of Cappadocia and Spain would have supplied new squadrons
of cavalry; the thirty-four arsenals of the empire were plentifully stored
with magazines of offensive and defensive arms: and the wealth of Asia
might still have yielded an ample fund for the expenses of the war. But
the effects which were produced by the battle of Hadrianople on the minds
of the Barbarians and of the Romans, extended the victory of the former,
and the defeat of the latter, far beyond the limits of a single day. A
Gothic chief was heard to declare, with insolent moderation, that, for his
own part, he was fatigued with slaughter: but that he was astonished how a
people, who fled before him like a flock of sheep, could still presume to
dispute the possession of their treasures and provinces. The same terrors
which the name of the Huns had spread among the Gothic tribes, were
inspired, by the formidable name of the Goths, among the subjects and
soldiers of the Roman empire. If Theodosius, hastily collecting his
scattered forces, had led them into the field to encounter a victorious
enemy, his army would have been vanquished by their own fears; and his
rashness could not have been excused by the chance of success. But the
great Theodosius, an epithet which he honorably
deserved on this momentous occasion, conducted himself as the firm and
faithful guardian of the republic. He fixed his head-quarters at
Thessalonica, the capital of the Macedonian diocese; from whence he could
watch the irregular motions of the Barbarians, and direct the operations
of his lieutenants, from the gates of Constantinople to the shores of the
Hadriatic. The fortifications and garrisons of the cities were
strengthened; and the troops, among whom a sense of order and discipline
was revived, were insensibly emboldened by the confidence of their own
safety. From these secure stations, they were encouraged to make frequent
sallies on the Barbarians, who infested the adjacent country; and, as they
were seldom allowed to engage, without some decisive superiority, either
of ground or of numbers, their enterprises were, for the most part,
successful; and they were soon convinced, by their own experience, of the
possibility of vanquishing their invincible
enemies. The detachments of these separate garrisons were generally united
into small armies; the same cautious measures were pursued, according to
an extensive and well-concerted plan of operations; the events of each day
added strength and spirit to the Roman arms; and the artful diligence of
the emperor, who circulated the most favorable reports of the success of
the war, contributed to subdue the pride of the Barbarians, and to animate
the hopes and courage of his subjects. If, instead of this faint and
imperfect outline, we could accurately represent the counsels and actions
of Theodosius, in four successive campaigns, there is reason to believe,
that his consummate skill would deserve the applause of every military
reader. The republic had formerly been saved by the delays of Fabius; and,
while the splendid trophies of Scipio, in the field of Zama, attract the
eyes of posterity, the camps and marches of the dictator among the hills
of the Campania, may claim a juster proportion of the solid and
independent fame, which the general is not compelled to share, either with
fortune or with his troops. Such was likewise the merit of Theodosius; and
the infirmities of his body, which most unseasonably languished under a
long and dangerous disease, could not oppress the vigor of his mind, or
divert his attention from the public service.
The deliverance and peace of the Roman provinces was the work of prudence,
rather than of valor: the prudence of Theodosius was seconded by fortune:
and the emperor never failed to seize, and to improve, every favorable
circumstance. As long as the superior genius of Fritigern preserved the
union, and directed the motions of the Barbarians, their power was not
inadequate to the conquest of a great empire. The death of that hero, the
predecessor and master of the renowned Alaric, relieved an impatient
multitude from the intolerable yoke of discipline and discretion. The
Barbarians, who had been restrained by his authority, abandoned themselves
to the dictates of their passions; and their passions were seldom uniform
or consistent. An army of conquerors was broken into many disorderly bands
of savage robbers; and their blind and irregular fury was not less
pernicious to themselves, than to their enemies. Their mischievous
disposition was shown in the destruction of every object which they wanted
strength to remove, or taste to enjoy; and they often consumed, with
improvident rage, the harvests, or the granaries, which soon afterwards
became necessary for their own subsistence. A spirit of discord arose
among the independent tribes and nations, which had been united only by
the bands of a loose and voluntary alliance. The troops of the Huns and
the Alani would naturally upbraid the flight of the Goths; who were not
disposed to use with moderation the advantages of their fortune; the
ancient jealousy of the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths could not long be
suspended; and the haughty chiefs still remembered the insults and
injuries, which they had reciprocally offered, or sustained, while the
nation was seated in the countries beyond the Danube. The progress of
domestic faction abated the more diffusive sentiment of national
animosity; and the officers of Theodosius were instructed to purchase,
with liberal gifts and promises, the retreat or service of the
discontented party. The acquisition of Modar, a prince of the royal blood
of the Amali, gave a bold and faithful champion to the cause of Rome. The
illustrious deserter soon obtained the rank of master-general, with an
important command; surprised an army of his countrymen, who were immersed
in wine and sleep; and, after a cruel slaughter of the astonished Goths,
returned with an immense spoil, and four thousand wagons, to the Imperial
camp. In the hands of a skilful politician, the most different means may
be successfully applied to the same ends; and the peace of the empire,
which had been forwarded by the divisions, was accomplished by the
reunion, of the Gothic nation. Athanaric, who had been a patient spectator
of these extraordinary events, was at length driven, by the chance of
arms, from the dark recesses of the woods of Caucaland. He no longer
hesitated to pass the Danube; and a very considerable part of the subjects
of Fritigern, who already felt the inconveniences of anarchy, were easily
persuaded to acknowledge for their king a Gothic Judge, whose birth they
respected, and whose abilities they had frequently experienced. But age
had chilled the daring spirit of Athanaric; and, instead of leading his
people to the field of battle and victory, he wisely listened to the fair
proposal of an honorable and advantageous treaty. Theodosius, who was
acquainted with the merit and power of his new ally, condescended to meet
him at the distance of several miles from Constantinople; and entertained
him in the Imperial city, with the confidence of a friend, and the
magnificence of a monarch. "The Barbarian prince observed, with curious
attention, the variety of objects which attracted his notice, and at last
broke out into a sincere and passionate exclamation of wonder. I now
behold (said he) what I never could believe, the glories of this
stupendous capital! And as he cast his eyes around, he viewed, and he
admired, the commanding situation of the city, the strength and beauty of
the walls and public edifices, the capacious harbor, crowded with
innumerable vessels, the perpetual concourse of distant nations, and the
arms and discipline of the troops. Indeed, (continued Athanaric,) the
emperor of the Romans is a god upon earth; and the presumptuous man, who
dares to lift his hand against him, is guilty of his own blood." The
Gothic king did not long enjoy this splendid and honorable reception; and,
as temperance was not the virtue of his nation, it may justly be
suspected, that his mortal disease was contracted amidst the pleasures of
the Imperial banquets. But the policy of Theodosius derived more solid
benefit from the death, than he could have expected from the most faithful
services, of his ally. The funeral of Athanaric was performed with solemn
rites in the capital of the East; a stately monument was erected to his
memory; and his whole army, won by the liberal courtesy, and decent grief,
of Theodosius, enlisted under the standard of the Roman empire. The
submission of so great a body of the Visigoths was productive of the most
salutary consequences; and the mixed influence of force, of reason, and of
corruption, became every day more powerful, and more extensive. Each
independent chieftain hastened to obtain a separate treaty, from the
apprehension that an obstinate delay might expose him,
alone and unprotected, to the revenge, or justice, of the conqueror. The
general, or rather the final, capitulation of the Goths, may be dated four
years, one month, and twenty-five days, after the defeat and death of the
emperor Valens.
The provinces of the Danube had been already relieved from the oppressive
weight of the Gruthungi, or Ostrogoths, by the voluntary retreat of
Alatheus and Saphrax, whose restless spirit had prompted them to seek new
scenes of rapine and glory. Their destructive course was pointed towards
the West; but we must be satisfied with a very obscure and imperfect
knowledge of their various adventures. The Ostrogoths impelled several of
the German tribes on the provinces of Gaul; concluded, and soon violated,
a treaty with the emperor Gratian; advanced into the unknown countries of
the North; and, after an interval of more than four years, returned, with
accumulated force, to the banks of the Lower Danube. Their troops were
recruited with the fiercest warriors of Germany and Scythia; and the
soldiers, or at least the historians, of the empire, no longer recognized
the name and countenances of their former enemies. The general who
commanded the military and naval powers of the Thracian frontier, soon
perceived that his superiority would be disadvantageous to the public
service; and that the Barbarians, awed by the presence of his fleet and
legions, would probably defer the passage of the river till the
approaching winter. The dexterity of the spies, whom he sent into the
Gothic camp, allured the Barbarians into a fatal snare. They were
persuaded that, by a bold attempt, they might surprise, in the silence and
darkness of the night, the sleeping army of the Romans; and the whole
multitude was hastily embarked in a fleet of three thousand canoes. The
bravest of the Ostrogoths led the van; the main body consisted of the
remainder of their subjects and soldiers; and the women and children
securely followed in the rear. One of the nights without a moon had been
selected for the execution of their design; and they had almost reached
the southern bank of the Danube, in the firm confidence that they should
find an easy landing and an unguarded camp. But the progress of the
Barbarians was suddenly stopped by an unexpected obstacle a triple line of
vessels, strongly connected with each other, and which formed an
impenetrable chain of two miles and a half along the river. While they
struggled to force their way in the unequal conflict, their right flank
was overwhelmed by the irresistible attack of a fleet of galleys, which
were urged down the stream by the united impulse of oars and of the tide.
The weight and velocity of those ships of war broke, and sunk, and
dispersed, the rude and feeble canoes of the Barbarians; their valor was
ineffectual; and Alatheus, the king, or general, of the Ostrogoths,
perished with his bravest troops, either by the sword of the Romans, or in
the waves of the Danube. The last division of this unfortunate fleet might
regain the opposite shore; but the distress and disorder of the multitude
rendered them alike incapable, either of action or counsel; and they soon
implored the clemency of the victorious enemy. On this occasion, as well
as on many others, it is a difficult task to reconcile the passions and
prejudices of the writers of the age of Theodosius. The partial and
malignant historian, who misrepresents every action of his reign, affirms,
that the emperor did not appear in the field of battle till the Barbarians
had been vanquished by the valor and conduct of his lieutenant Promotus.
The flattering poet, who celebrated, in the court of Honorius, the glory
of the father and of the son, ascribes the victory to the personal prowess
of Theodosius; and almost insinuates, that the king of the Ostrogoths was
slain by the hand of the emperor. The truth of history might perhaps be
found in a just medium between these extreme and contradictory assertions.
The original treaty which fixed the settlement of the Goths, ascertained
their privileges, and stipulated their obligations, would illustrate the
history of Theodosius and his successors. The series of their history has
imperfectly preserved the spirit and substance of this single agreement.
The ravages of war and tyranny had provided many large tracts of fertile
but uncultivated land for the use of those Barbarians who might not
disdain the practice of agriculture. A numerous colony of the Visigoths
was seated in Thrace; the remains of the Ostrogoths were planted in
Phrygia and Lydia; their immediate wants were supplied by a distribution
of corn and cattle; and their future industry was encouraged by an
exemption from tribute, during a certain term of years. The Barbarians
would have deserved to feel the cruel and perfidious policy of the
Imperial court, if they had suffered themselves to be dispersed through
the provinces. They required, and they obtained, the sole possession of
the villages and districts assigned for their residence; they still
cherished and propagated their native manners and language; asserted, in
the bosom of despotism, the freedom of their domestic government; and
acknowledged the sovereignty of the emperor, without submitting to the
inferior jurisdiction of the laws and magistrates of Rome. The hereditary
chiefs of the tribes and families were still permitted to command their
followers in peace and war; but the royal dignity was abolished; and the
generals of the Goths were appointed and removed at the pleasure of the
emperor. An army of forty thousand Goths was maintained for the perpetual
service of the empire of the East; and those haughty troops, who assumed
the title of Federati, or allies, were distinguished by their gold
collars, liberal pay, and licentious privileges. Their native courage was
improved by the use of arms and the knowledge of discipline; and, while
the republic was guarded, or threatened, by the doubtful sword of the
Barbarians, the last sparks of the military flame were finally
extinguished in the minds of the Romans. Theodosius had the address to
persuade his allies, that the conditions of peace, which had been extorted
from him by prudence and necessity, were the voluntary expressions of his
sincere friendship for the Gothic nation. A different mode of vindication
or apology was opposed to the complaints of the people; who loudly
censured these shameful and dangerous concessions. The calamities of the
war were painted in the most lively colors; and the first symptoms of the
return of order, of plenty, and security, were diligently exaggerated. The
advocates of Theodosius could affirm, with some appearance of truth and
reason, that it was impossible to extirpate so many warlike tribes, who
were rendered desperate by the loss of their native country; and that the
exhausted provinces would be revived by a fresh supply of soldiers and
husbandmen. The Barbarians still wore an angry and hostile aspect; but the
experience of past times might encourage the hope, that they would acquire
the habits of industry and obedience; that their manners would be polished
by time, education, and the influence of Christianity; and that their
posterity would insensibly blend with the great body of the Roman people.
Notwithstanding these specious arguments, and these sanguine expectations,
it was apparent to every discerning eye, that the Goths would long remain
the enemies, and might soon become the conquerors of the Roman empire.
Their rude and insolent behavior expressed their contempt of the citizens
and provincials, whom they insulted with impunity. To the zeal and valor
of the Barbarians Theodosius was indebted for the success of his arms: but
their assistance was precarious; and they were sometimes seduced, by a
treacherous and inconstant disposition, to abandon his standard, at the
moment when their service was the most essential. During the civil war
against Maximus, a great number of Gothic deserters retired into the
morasses of Macedonia, wasted the adjacent provinces, and obliged the
intrepid monarch to expose his person, and exert his power, to suppress
the rising flame of rebellion. The public apprehensions were fortified by
the strong suspicion, that these tumults were not the effect of accidental
passion, but the result of deep and premeditated design. It was generally
believed, that the Goths had signed the treaty of peace with a hostile and
insidious spirit; and that their chiefs had previously bound themselves,
by a solemn and secret oath, never to keep faith with the Romans; to
maintain the fairest show of loyalty and friendship, and to watch the
favorable moment of rapine, of conquest, and of revenge. But as the minds
of the Barbarians were not insensible to the power of gratitude, several
of the Gothic leaders sincerely devoted themselves to the service of the
empire, or, at least, of the emperor; the whole nation was insensibly
divided into two opposite factions, and much sophistry was employed in
conversation and dispute, to compare the obligations of their first, and
second, engagements. The Goths, who considered themselves as the friends
of peace, of justice, and of Rome, were directed by the authority of
Fravitta, a valiant and honorable youth, distinguished above the rest of
his countrymen by the politeness of his manners, the liberality of his
sentiments, and the mild virtues of social life. But the more numerous
faction adhered to the fierce and faithless Priulf, * who inflamed the
passions, and asserted the independence, of his warlike followers. On one
of the solemn festivals, when the chiefs of both parties were invited to
the Imperial table, they were insensibly heated by wine, till they forgot
the usual restraints of discretion and respect, and betrayed, in the
presence of Theodosius, the fatal secret of their domestic disputes. The
emperor, who had been the reluctant witness of this extraordinary
controversy, dissembled his fears and resentment, and soon dismissed the
tumultuous assembly. Fravitta, alarmed and exasperated by the insolence of
his rival, whose departure from the palace might have been the signal of a
civil war, boldly followed him; and, drawing his sword, laid Priulf dead
at his feet. Their companions flew to arms; and the faithful champion of
Rome would have been oppressed by superior numbers, if he had not been
protected by the seasonable interposition of the Imperial guards. Such
were the scenes of Barbaric rage, which disgraced the palace and table of
the Roman emperor; and, as the impatient Goths could only be restrained by
the firm and temperate character of Theodosius, the public safety seemed
to depend on the life and abilities of a single man.
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