Chapter III: Part 3

Cicero has said of Cæsar’s oratory that he surpassed those who had practiced no other art. His praise of him as a man of letters is yet more delicately and gracefully emphatic. Most of his writings are lost; but there remain seven books of commentaries on the wars in Gaul (the eighth was added by another hand) and three books on the civil war, containing an account of its causes and history. Of these it was that Cicero said, in an admirable image, that fools might think to improve on them, but that no wise man would try it; they were bare of ornament, the dress of style dispensed with, like an undraped human figure in all its lines as nature made it. In his composition, as in his actions, Cæsar is entirely simple. He indulges in no images, no labored descriptions, no conventional reflections. His art is unconscious, as the highest art always is.

Of Cæsar it may be said that he came into the world at a special time and for a special object. The old religions were dead from the Pillars of Hercules to the Euphrates and the Nile, and the principles on which human society had been constructed were dead also. There remained of spiritual conviction only the common and human sense of justice and morality; and out of this sense some ordered system of government had to be constructed, under which quiet men could live and labor and eat the fruit of their industry. Under a rule of this material kind there can be no enthusiasm, no chivalry, no saintly aspirations, no patriotism of the heroic type. It was not to last forever. A new life was about to dawn for mankind.

Poetry and faith and devotion were to spring again out of the seeds which were sleeping in the heart of humanity. But the life which is to endure grows slowly; and as the soil must be prepared before the wheat can be sown, so before the Kingdom of Heaven could throw up its shoots, there was needed a kingdom of this world where the nations were neither torn in pieces by violence, nor were rushing after false ideals and spurious ambitions. Such a kingdom was the empire of the Cæsars, a kingdom where peaceful men could work, think, and speak as they pleased, and travel freely among provinces ruled for the most part by Gallios[13] who protected life and property, and forbade fanatics to tear each other to pieces for their religious opinions.

“It is not lawful for us to put any man to death,” was the complaint of the Jewish priests to the Roman governor. Had Europe and Asia been covered with independent nations, each with a local religion represented in its ruling powers, Christianity must have been stifled in its cradle. If St. Paul had escaped the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem, he would have been torn to death by the silversmiths at Ephesus. The appeal to Cæsar’s judgment-seat was the shield of his mission, and alone made possible his success.

And this spirit which confined government to its simple duties, while it left opinion unfettered, was specially present in Julius Cæsar himself. From cant of all kinds he was totally free. He was a friend of the people, but indulged in no enthusiasm for liberty. He never dilated on the beauties of virtue, or complimented, as Cicero did, a Providence in which he did not believe. He was too sincere to stoop to unreality. He held to the facts of this life and to his own convictions; and as he found no reason for supposing that there was a life beyond the grave, he did not pretend to expect it. He respected the religion of the Roman state as an institution established by the laws.

He encouraged or left unmolested the creeds and practices of the uncounted sects and tribes who were gathered under the eagles. But his own writings contain nothing to indicate that he himself had any religious belief at all. He saw no evidence that the gods practically interfered in human affairs. He never pretended that Jupiter was on his side. He thanked his soldiers after a victory, but he did not order _Te Deums_ to be sung for it; and in the absence of these conventionalisms he perhaps showed more real reverence than he could have displayed by the freest use of the formulas of piety. He fought his battles to establish some tolerable degree of justice in the government of this world; and he succeeded though he was murdered for doing it.

TRAJAN.

BY CHARLES MERIVALE.

[M. Ulpius Trajanus, successor as Roman emperor to Nerva, born A.D.
53, ascended the throne 99; died 118. One of the most illustrious
among those who wore the Roman purple, his reign was distinguished
as much by happiness and prosperity as by lofty virtues. As a
soldier, Trajan subdued the Dacians, completed the conquest of
Germany and Sarmatia, annexed Armenia to the empire, and subdued
the Parthians to the Roman yoke. His civic administration was no
less notable than his military conquests and organization.]

The princely prodigality of Trajan’s taste was defrayed by the plunder or the tribute of conquered enemies, and seems to have laid at least no extraordinary burden on his subjects. His rage for building had the further merit of being directed for the most part to works of public utility and interest. He built for the gods, the senate, and the people, and not for himself; he restored the palaces, enlarged the halls and places of public resort; but he was content himself with the palaces of his predecessors. A writer three centuries later declares of Trajan that he built the world over; and the wide diffusion and long continuance of his fame beyond that of so many others of the imperial series may be partly attributed to the constant recurrence of his name conspicuously inscribed on the most solid and best known monuments of the empire.

The care of this wise and liberal ruler extended from the harbors, aqueducts, and bridges to the general repair of the highways of the empire. He was the great improver, though not the inventor of the system of posts on the chief roads, which formed a striking feature of Roman civilization as an instrument for combining the remotest provinces under a central organization.

The legislation of this popular emperor is marked generally by a special consideration for Italian interests. The measures by which he secured a constant supply of grain from the provinces, exempting its exportation from all duties, and stimulating the growers at one extremity of the empire to relieve the deficiencies of another, were directed to the maintenance of abundance in Rome and Italy. Thus, on the casual failure of the harvest in Egypt, her empty granaries were at once replenished from the superfluous stores of Gaul, Spain, or Africa.

Though Trajan’s mind did not rise to wide and liberal views for the advantages of the provinces, he neglected no favorable opportunity for the benefit of particular localities. His hand was open to bestow endowments and largesses, to relieve public calamities, to increase public enjoyments, to repair the ravages of earthquakes and tempests, to construct roads and canals, theatres and aqueducts. The activity displayed through the empire in works of this unproductive nature shows a great command of money, an abundant currency, easy means of transacting business, ample resources of labor, and well devised schemes of combining and unfolding them. Judicious economy went ever hand in hand with genuine magnificence.

The monuments of Roman jurisprudence contain many examples of Trajan’s legislation. Like the great statesmen of the republic, he returned from the camp to the city to take his seat daily on the tribunals with the ablest judges for his assessors. He heard appeals from the highest courts throughout his dominion, and the final sentence he pronounced assumed the validity of a legal enactment. The clemency of Trajan was as conspicuous as his love of justice, and to him is ascribed the noble sentiment, that it is better that the guilty should escape than the innocent suffer.

The justice, the modesty, the unwearied application of Trajan were deservedly celebrated, no less than his valor in war and his conduct in political affairs. But a great part of his amazing popularity was owing, no doubt, to his genial demeanor and to the affection inspired by his qualities as a friend and associate. The remains still existing of his correspondence in the letters of Pliny bring out not only the manners of the time, but in some degree the character of the prince also; and bear ample testimony to his minute vigilance and unwearied application, his anxiety for his subjects’ well-being, the ease with which he conducted his intercourse with his friends, and the ease with which he inspired them in return.

Trajan’s letters bespeak the polished gentleman no less than the statesman. He was fond of society, and of educated and literary society. He was proud of being known to associate with the learned, and felt himself complimented when he bestowed on the rhetorician Dion the compliment of carrying him in his own chariot. That such refinement of taste was not incompatible with excess in the indulgences of the table was the fault of the times, and more particularly of the habits of camp life to which he had been accustomed. Intemperance was always a Roman vice.

The affability of the prince, and the freedom with which he exchanged with his nobles all the offices of ordinary courtesy and hospitality, bathing, supping, or hunting as an equal in their company, constituted one of his greatest charms in the eyes of a jealous patriciate which had seen its masters too often engrossed by the flatteries of freedmen and still viler associates.

But Trajan enjoyed also the distinction dear in Roman eyes of a fine figure and a noble countenance. In stature he exceeded the common height, and on public occasions, when he loved to walk bareheaded in the midst of the senators, his gray hairs gleamed conspicuously above the crowd. His features, as we may trace them unmistakably on his innumerable busts and medals, were regular; and his face was the last of the imperial series that retained the true Roman type--not in the aquiline nose only, but in the broad and low forehead, the angular chin, the firm, compressed lips, and generally in the stern compactness of its structure.

The thick and straight-cut hair, smoothed over the brow without a curl or parting, marks the simplicity of the man’s character in a voluptuous age which delighted in the culture of flowing or frizzed locks. But the most interesting characteristic of the figure I have so vividly before me is the look of painful thought, which seems to indicate a constant sense of overwhelming responsibilities, honorably and bravely borne, yet, notwithstanding much assumed cheerfulness and self-abandonment, ever irritating the nerves and weighing upon the conscience.

THE ANTONINES.

BY EDWARD GIBBON.

[Titus Antoninus Pius, born 86 A.D., mounted the throne 138, died
161; Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, adopted son and successor of the
preceding, born 121 A.D., mounted the throne 161, died 180. The
first of the Antonines was born of a respectable family, settled in
Gaul, became pro-consul of Asia under Hadrian, afterward of a
division of Italy, and was selected by Hadrian as his successor on
account of his ability and virtues. Marcus Aurelius was
distinguished not only as general and administrator, as a ruler of
the most exemplary and noble character, but his name has descended
to modern ages as that of the royal philosopher. His “Meditations”
constitute one of the Roman classics.]

Under Hadrian’s reign the empire flourished in peace and prosperity. He encouraged the arts, reformed the laws, assisted military discipline, and visited all his provinces in person. His vast and active genius was equally suited to the most enlarged views and the minute details of civil policy. But the ruling passions of his soul were curiosity and vanity. As they prevailed and as they were attracted by different objects, Hadrian was by turns an excellent prince, a ridiculous sophist, and a jealous tyrant. The general tenor of his conduct deserved praise for its equity and moderation. Yet in the first days of his reign he put to death four consular senators, his personal enemies, and men who had been deemed worthy of empire; and the tediousness of a painful illness at last made him peevish and cruel.

The senate doubted whether they should pronounce him a god or a tyrant, and the honors decreed to his memory were granted to the prayers of the pious Antonines. The caprice of Hadrian influenced his choice of a successor. After revolving in his mind several men of distinguished merit whom he esteemed and hated, he adopted Ælius Verus, a gay and voluptuous nobleman, recommended by uncommon beauty. But while Hadrian was delighting himself with his own applause and the acclamations of the soldiers, whose consent had been secured by an immense donative, the new Cæsar was reft from imperial friendship by an untimely death.

He left only one son. Hadrian recommended the boy to the gratitude of the Antonines. He was adopted by Pius, and on the accession of Marcus was invested with an equal share of sovereign power. Among the many vices of this younger Verus, he possessed one virtue--a dutiful reverence for his wiser colleague, to whom he willingly abandoned the ruder cares of empire. The philosophic emperor dissembled his follies, lamented his early death, and cast a decent veil over his memory.

As soon as Hadrian’s caprice in friendship had been gratified or disappointed, he resolved to deserve the thanks of posterity by placing the most exalted merit on the Roman throne. His discerning eye easily discovered a senator about fifty years of age, blameless in all the offices of life, and a youth about seventeen, whose riper years opened the fair prospect of every virtue. The elder of these was declared the son and successor of Hadrian, on condition, however, that he himself should immediately adopt the younger. The two Antonines (for it is of them we are now speaking) governed the Roman world forty-two years with the same invariable spirit of wisdom and virtue.

Although Pius had two sons, he preferred the welfare of Rome to the interests of his family; gave his daughter Faustina in marriage to young Marcus, obtained from the senate the tribunitial and consular powers and pro-consular powers, and with a noble disdain, or rather ignorance of jealousy, associated him to all the labors of government.

Marcus, on the other hand, revered the character of his benefactor, loved him as a parent, obeyed him as his sovereign, and, after he was no more, regulated his own administration by the example and maxims of his predecessor. Their united reigns are possibly the only period in history in which the happiness of a great people was the sole object of government.

Titus Antoninus Pius has been justly denominated a second Numa. The same love of religion, justice, and peace was the distinguishing characteristic of both princes. But the situation of the latter opened a much larger field for the exercise of these virtues. Numa could only prevent a few neighboring villages from plundering each other’s harvests. Antoninus diffused order and tranquillity over the greater part of the earth. His reign is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials for history; which is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.

In private life he was an amiable as well as a good man. The native simplicity of his virtue was a stranger to vanity or affectation. He enjoyed with moderation the conveniences of his fortune and the innocent pleasures of society; and the benevolence of his soul displayed itself in a cheerful serenity of temper.

The virtue of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was of a severer and more laborious kind. It was the well-earned harvest of many a learned conference, of many a patient lecture, and many a midnight lucubration. At the age of twelve years he embraced the rigid doctrines of the Stoics, which taught him to submit his body to his mind, his passions to his reason; to consider virtue as the only good, vice as the only evil, all things external as things indifferent. His “Meditations,” composed in the tumult of a camp, are still extant; and he even condescended to give lessons on philosophy in a more public manner than was perhaps consistent with the modesty of a sage or the dignity of an emperor. But his life was the noblest commentary on the philosophy of Zeno.

He was severe to himself, indulgent to the imperfections of others, just and beneficent to all mankind. He regretted that the death of Ovidius Cassius, who excited a rebellion in Syria, had disappointed him, by a voluntary death, of the pleasure of converting an enemy into a friend; and he justified the sincerity of that statement by moderating the zeal of the senate against the adherents of the traitor.

War he detested as the disgrace and calamity of human nature; but when the necessity of a just defense called on him to take up arms, he readily exposed his person to eight winter campaigns on the frozen banks of the Danube, the severity of which was at last fatal to the weakness of his constitution. His memory was revered by a grateful posterity, and above a century after his death, many persons preserved the image of Marcus Antoninus among those of their household gods.

If a man were called on to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus. The vast extent of the Roman Empire was governed by absolute power under the guidance of virtue and wisdom. The armies were restrained by the firm but gentle hand of five successive emperors, whose characters and authority commanded universal respect.

The forms of the civil administration were carefully preserved by Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, who delighted in the image of liberty, and were pleased with considering themselves as the accountable ministers of the laws. Such princes deserved the honor of restoring the republic had the Romans of their days been capable of enjoying a rational freedom. The labors of these monarchs were overpaid by the immense reward that inseparably waited on their success, by the honest pride of virtue, and by the exquisite delight of beholding the general happiness of which they were the authors.

ZENOBIA, QUEEN OF PALMYRA.

BY EDWARD GIBBON.

[Septimia Zenobia, of mixed Greek and Arab descent, dates of birth
and death doubtful. Twice married, she reached through her second
husband, Odenathus, Prince of Palmyra, a field for the exercise of
her great talents. She aspired to be Empress of Western Asia after
her husband’s death, and only succumbed to the superior genius or
fortune of Aurelian, the Roman Emperor. The unsuccessful issue of
two pitched battles and two sieges placed her in the power of Rome
(273 A.D.). The clemency of the victor, though it made the captive
an ornament of his triumph, loaded her with wealth and kindness,
while it relegated her to a private station.]

Modern Europe has produced several illustrious women who have sustained with glory the weight of empire; nor is our own age destitute of such distinguished characters. But if we except the doubtful achievements of Semiramis, Zenobia is perhaps the only female whose superior genius broke through the servile indolence imposed on her sex by the habits and climate of Asia. She claimed her descent from the Macedonian kings of Egypt, equaled in beauty her ancestor Cleopatra, and far surpassed that princess in chastity and valor.

Zenobia was esteemed the most lovely as well as the most heroic of her sex. She was of a dark complexion (for in speaking of a lady these trifles become important); her teeth were of a pearly whiteness; and her large black eyes sparkled with uncommon fire tempered by the most attractive sweetness. Her voice was strong and harmonious. Her manly understanding was strengthened and adorned by study. She was not ignorant of the Latin tongue, but possessed in equal perfection the Greek, the Syriac, and the Egyptian languages. She had drawn up for her own use an epitome of Oriental history, and familiarly compared the beauties of Homer and Plato under the tuition of the sublime Longinus. This accomplished woman gave her hand to Odenathus, who from a private station raised himself to the dominion of the East. She soon became the friend and companion of a hero. In the intervals of war Odenathus passionately delighted in the exercise of hunting. He pursued with ardor the wild beasts of the desert--lions, panthers, and bears--and the ardor of Zenobia in that dangerous amusement was not inferior to his own. She had inured her constitution to fatigue, disdained the use of a covered carriage, generally appeared on horseback in a military habit, and sometimes marched several miles on foot at the head of the troops.

The success of Odenathus was in great measure ascribed to her incomparable prudence and fortitude. Their splendid victories over the Great King, whom they twice pursued as far as the gates of Ctesiphon, laid the foundation of their united fame and power. The armies which they commanded and the provinces which they had saved acknowledged not any other sovereigns than their invincible chiefs. The senate and people of Rome revered a stranger who had avenged their captive emperor, and even the insensible son of Valerian accepted Odenathus for his legitimate colleague.

After a successful expedition against the Gothic plunderers of Asia the Palmyrenian prince returned to the city of Emesa in Syria. Invincible in war, he was there cut off by domestic treason, and his favorite amusement of hunting was the cause, or at least the occasion, of his death. His nephew Mæonius presumed to dart his javelin before that of his uncle; and, though admonished of his error, repeated his insolence. As a monarch and as a sportsman Odenathus was provoked, took away his horse--a mark of ignominy among barbarians--and chastised his rash youth by a short confinement. The offense was soon forgot, but the punishment was remembered; and Mæonius, with a few daring associates, assassinated his uncle in the midst of a great entertainment. Herod, the son of Odenathus, though not of Zenobia, a young man of soft and effeminate temper, was killed with his father. But Mæonius obtained only the pleasures of revenge by this bloody deed. He had scarcely time to assume the title of Augustus before he was sacrificed by Zenobia to the memory of her husband. With the assistance of his most faithful friends she immediately filled the vacant throne and governed with manly counsels Palmyra, Syria, and the East above five years. By the death of Odenathus, that authority was at an end which the senate had granted him only as a personal distinction; but his widow, disdaining both the senate and Gallienus, obliged one of the Roman generals who was sent against her to retreat into Europe with the loss of his army and his reputation.

Instead of the little passions which so frequently perplex a female reign, the administration of Zenobia was guided by the most judicious maxims of policy. If it was expedient to pardon, she could calm her resentment; if it were necessary to punish, she could impose silence on the voice of pity. Her strict economy was accused of avarice; yet on every proper occasion she appeared magnificent and liberal. The neighboring states of Arabia, Armenia, and Persia dreaded her enmity and solicited her alliance. To the dominions of Odenathus, which extended from the Euphrates to the frontiers of Bithynia, his widow added the inheritance of her ancestors, the populous and fertile kingdom of Egypt. The Emperor Claudius acknowledged her merit, and was content that while _he_ pursued the Gothic war, _she_ should pursue the dignity of the empire in the East. The conduct, however, of Zenobia was attended with some ambiguity; nor is it unlikely that she had conceived the design of erecting an independent and hostile monarchy. She blended with the popular manners of Roman princes the stately pomp of the courts of Asia, and exacted from her subjects the same adoration that was paid to the successors of Cyrus. She bestowed on her three sons a Latin education, and often showed them to the troops adorned with the imperial purple. For herself she reserved the diadem with the splendid but doubtful title of Queen of the East.

When Aurelian passed over into Asia, against an adversary whose sex alone could render her an object of contempt, his presence restored obedience to the province of Bithynia, already shaken by the arts and the arms of Zenobia. Advancing at the head of his legions, he accepted the submission of Ancyra, and was admitted into Tyana after an obstinate siege, by the help of a perfidious citizen. Zenobia would have ill deserved her reputation had she indolently permitted the Emperor of the West to approach within a hundred miles of her capital. The fate of the East was decided in two great battles, so similar in almost every circumstance that we can scarcely distinguish them from each other, except by observing that the first was fought near Antioch and the second near Emesa. After the defeat of Emesa Zenobia found it impossible to collect a third army. Palmyra was the last resource of the widow of Odenathus. She retired within the walls of her capital, made every preparation for a vigorous resistance, and declared with the intrepidity of a heroine that the last moment of her reign and of her life should be the same. The siege of Palmyra was an object far more difficult and important; and the emperor, who with incessant vigor pressed the attacks in person, was himself wounded with a dart. “The Roman people,” says Aurelian in an original letter, “speak with contempt of the war which I am waging against a woman. They are ignorant both of the character and power of Zenobia. It is impossible to enumerate her warlike preparations of stones, of arrows, and of every species of missile weapons. Every part of the walls is provided with two or three _balistæ_, and artificial fires are thrown from her military engines. The fear of punishment has armed her with a desperate courage. Yet still I trust in the protecting deities of Rome, who have hitherto been favorable to all my undertakings.” The firmness of Zenobia was supported by the hope that in a very short time famine would compel the Roman army to repass the desert. But from every part of Syria a regular succession of convoys safely arrived in the camp, which was increased by the return of Probus with his victorious troops from the conquest of Egypt. It was then that Zenobia resolved to fly. She mounted the fleetest of her dromedaries, and had already reached the banks of the Euphrates, about sixty miles from Palmyra, when she was overtaken by the pursuit of Aurelian’s light-horse, seized, and brought back a captive to the feet of the emperor. Her capital soon afterward surrendered, and was treated with unexpected lenity.

When the Syrian queen was brought into the presence of Aurelian he sternly asked her how she had presumed to rise in arms against the Emperor of Rome? The answer of Zenobia was a prudent mixture of respect and firmness: “Because I disdained to consider as Roman emperors an Aureolus or a Gallienus. You alone I acknowledge as my conqueror and sovereign.”

However, in the treatment of his unfortunate rivals, Aurelian might indulge his pride, he behaved toward them with a generous clemency which was seldom exercised by the ancient conquerors. The emperor presented Zenobia with an elegant villa at Tibur, or Tivoli, about twenty miles from the capital. The Syrian queen insensibly sunk into a Roman matron, her daughters married into noble families, and her race was not yet extinct in the fifth century.

CONSTANTINE, THE FIRST CHRISTIAN EMPEROR.

BY EDWARD GIBBON.

[Caius Flavius Valerius Aurelius Claudius, surnamed “the Great,”
born 272 A.D., died 337. He was the son of Constantine Chlorus, who
was appointed _Cæsar_, or lieutenant-emperor of the western part of
the empire which was divided between the two _Augusti_, or
emperors, Diocletian and Maximian. Constantine assumed the purple
of empire by acclamation of his legions while commanding in Britain
in 306. While leading his army to Rome to take possession of the
capital, the legend relates that Constantine saw a blazing cross in
the sky inscribed with [Greek: hen tohutph nhika], “In this
conquer.” Thenceforward the Christian symbol was inscribed on the
standards and shields of the army, and Christianity became
recognized as the state Church, though Constantine did not profess
the religion till his deathbed. In the year 323 he took the field
against his brother-in-law Licinius, Emperor of the East, and by
the defeat and execution of the latter he became sole ruler of the
reunited empire. Among the most important events of his reign were
the founding of the new capital of Constantinople (330) on the site
of Byzantium, and the first great general Christian council (325),
held at Nice, in Asia Minor. By the decision of the latter the
Athanasian Creed, embodying the doctrine of the Trinity, was made
the orthodox belief of the Church, and Arianism was condemned as
heresy. The character of Constantine was stained by suspicion and
cruelty, to which his father-in-law, his brother-in-law, his son,
and his wife successively fell victims.]

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 dispatch of business, his diligence was indefatigable; and the active powers of his mind were almost continually exercised in reading, writing, or meditating, in giving audience to ambassadors, and in examining the complaints of his subjects. Even those who censured the propriety of his measures were compelled to acknowledge that he possessed magnanimity to conceive and patience to execute the most arduous designs without being checked either by the prejudices of education or by the clamors of the multitude. In the field he infused his own intrepid spirit into the troops, whom he conducted with the talents of a consummate general; and to his abilities, rather than to his fortune, we may ascribe the signal victories which he obtained over the foreign and domestic foes of the republic. He loved glory as the reward, perhaps as the motive of his labors.

The boundless ambition which, from the moment of his accepting the purple at York, appears as the ruling passion of his soul, may be justified by the dangers of his own situation, by the character of his rivals, by the consciousness of superior merit, and by the prospect that his success would enable him to restore peace and order to the distracted empire. In his civil wars against Maxentius and Licinius, he had engaged on his side the inclinations of the people, who compared the undissembled vices of those tyrants with the spirit of wisdom and justice which seemed to direct the general tenor of the administration of Constantine.

Had Constantine fallen on the banks of the Tiber, or even in the plains of Adrianople, 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 (A.D. 323-337) 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, toward 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 skillful artists of 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. 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.

JULIAN THE APOSTATE.

BY EDWARD GIBBON.

[Flavius Claudius Julianus, born 331 A.D., died 363. He was the
nephew of Constantine, and was made _Cæsar_ by his cousin the
Emperor Constantius in 355. On the death of the latter, Julian
became sole emperor in 361. Though bred in the Christian faith, his
deep sympathy with the philosophy and letters of Greece, and his
aversion to the factional bigotry of the Christian sects, caused
him, on assuming the purple, to discard the doctrines of Christ,
and attempt the restitution of paganism.]

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, “Oh 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 dispatch 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 practiced on fancied topics of declamation, were more usefully applied to excite or assuage the passions of an armed multitude; and though 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 unpracticed 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, an 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.

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 (A.D. 363, January 1st), 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.[14] 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 service 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 had 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 defense 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 practiced, 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 prefects, 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 truth 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 noble and wealthy 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 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. 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.[15]

THEODOSIUS THE GREAT.

BY EDWARD GIBBON.

[Born in Spain, about 346 A.D., of a Visigothic family, and died
395. He was made _Augustus_, or co-Emperor of the West, by Gratian,
in 379, but became by his great abilities the practical ruler of
the two empires, with his imperial seat at Constantinople.
Theodosius twice reconquered the West, where usurpers had made
successful revolt, and became the acknowledged master of the whole
Roman world. He was the last great emperor who shone brightly by
his genius for military affairs and his skill in civil
administration. Theodosius became so dear to the Catholic heart by
his persecution of the Arian heretics that he was afterward
canonized. At his death the empire was again divided, falling to
his sons, Honorius and Arcadius.]