Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part V

The introduction of Barbarians into the Roman armies became every
day more universal, more necessary, and more fatal. The most
daring of the Scythians, of the Goths, and of the Germans, who
delighted in war, and who found it more profitable to defend than
to ravage the provinces, were enrolled, not only in the
auxiliaries of their respective nations, but in the legions
themselves, and among the most distinguished of the Palatine
troops. As they freely mingled with the subjects of the empire,
they gradually learned to despise their manners, and to imitate
their arts. They abjured the implicit reverence which the pride
of Rome had exacted from their ignorance, while they acquired the
knowledge and possession of those advantages by which alone she
supported her declining greatness. The Barbarian soldiers, who
displayed any military talents, were advanced, without exception,
to the most important commands; and the names of the tribunes, of
the counts and dukes, and of the generals themselves, betray a
foreign origin, which they no longer condescended to disguise.
They were often intrusted with the conduct of a war against their
countrymen; and though most of them preferred the ties of
allegiance to those of blood, they did not always avoid the
guilt, or at least the suspicion, of holding a treasonable
correspondence with the enemy, of inviting his invasion, or of
sparing his retreat. The camps and the palace of the son of
Constantine were governed by the powerful faction of the Franks,
who preserved the strictest connection with each other, and with
their country, and who resented every personal affront as a
national indignity. 140 When the tyrant Caligula was suspected of
an intention to invest a very extraordinary candidate with the
consular robes, the sacrilegious profanation would have scarcely
excited less astonishment, if, instead of a horse, the noblest
chieftain of Germany or Britain had been the object of his
choice. The revolution of three centuries had produced so
remarkable a change in the prejudices of the people, that, with
the public approbation, Constantine showed his successors the
example of bestowing the honors of the consulship on the
Barbarians, who, by their merit and services, had deserved to be
ranked among the first of the Romans. 141 But as these hardy
veterans, who had been educated in the ignorance or contempt of
the laws, were incapable of exercising any civil offices, the
powers of the human mind were contracted by the irreconcilable
separation of talents as well as of professions. The accomplished
citizens of the Greek and Roman republics, whose characters could
adapt themselves to the bar, the senate, the camp, or the
schools, had learned to write, to speak, and to act with the same
spirit, and with equal abilities.

140 (return) [ Malarichus—adhibitis Francis quorum ea tempestate
in palatio multitudo florebat, erectius jam loquebatur
tumultuabaturque. Ammian. l. xv. c. 5.]

141 (return) [ Barbaros omnium primus, ad usque fasces auxerat et
trabeas consulares. Ammian. l. xx. c. 10. Eusebius (in Vit.
Constantin. l. iv c.7) and Aurelius Victor seem to confirm the
truth of this assertion yet in the thirty-two consular Fasti of
the reign of Constantine cannot discover the name of a single
Barbarian. I should therefore interpret the liberality of that
prince as relative to the ornaments rather than to the office, of
the consulship.]

IV. Besides the magistrates and generals, who at a distance from
the court diffused their delegated authority over the provinces
and armies, the emperor conferred the rank of _Illustrious_ on
seven of his more immediate servants, to whose fidelity he
intrusted his safety, or his counsels, or his treasures. 1. The
private apartments of the palace were governed by a favorite
eunuch, who, in the language of that age, was styled the
_præpositus_, 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; 142 and even his deputy, the first
of the splendid train of slaves who waited in the presence, was
thought worthy to rank before the _respectable_ proconsuls of
Greece or Asia. The jurisdiction of the chamberlain was
acknowledged by the _counts_, or superintendents, who regulated
the two important provinces of the magnificence of the wardrobe,
and of the luxury of the Imperial table. 143 2. The principal
administration of public affairs was committed to the diligence
and abilities of the _master of the offices_. 144 He was the
supreme magistrate of the palace, inspected the discipline of the
civil and military _schools_, and received appeals from all parts
of the empire, in the causes which related to that numerous army
of privileged persons, who, as the servants of the court, had
obtained for themselves and families a right to decline the
authority of the ordinary judges. The correspondence between the
prince and his subjects was managed by the four _scrinia_, or
offices of this minister of state. The first was appropriated to
memorials, the second to epistles, the third to petitions, and
the fourth to papers and orders of a miscellaneous kind. Each of
these was directed by an _inferior_ master of _respectable_
dignity, and the whole business was despatched by a hundred and
forty-eight secretaries, chosen for the most part from the
profession of the law, on account of the variety of abstracts of
reports and references which frequently occurred in the exercise
of their several functions. From a condescension, which in former
ages would have been esteemed unworthy the Roman majesty, a
particular secretary was allowed for the Greek language; and
interpreters were appointed to receive the ambassadors of the
Barbarians; but the department of foreign affairs, which
constitutes so essential a part of modern policy, seldom diverted
the attention of the master of the offices. His mind was more
seriously engaged by the general direction of the posts and
arsenals of the empire. There were thirty-four cities, fifteen in
the East, and nineteen in the West, in which regular companies of
workmen were perpetually employed in fabricating defensive armor,
offensive weapons of all sorts, and military engines, which were
deposited in the arsenals, and occasionally delivered for the
service of the troops. 3. In the course of nine centuries, the
office of _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; 145 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; 146
and the noblest citizens ambitiously solicited an office which
gave them a seat in the senate, and a just hope of obtaining the
honors of the republic. Whilst Augustus affected to maintain the
freedom of election, he consented to accept the annual privilege
of recommending, or rather indeed of nominating, a certain
proportion of candidates; and it was his custom to select one of
these distinguished youths, to read his orations or epistles in
the assemblies of the senate. 147 The practice of Augustus was
imitated by succeeding princes; the occasional commission was
established as a permanent office; and the favored quæstor,
assuming a new and more illustrious character, alone survived the
suppression of his ancient and useless colleagues. 148 As the
orations which he composed in the name of the emperor, 149
acquired the force, and, at length, the form, of absolute edicts,
he was considered as the representative of the legislative power,
the oracle of the council, and the original source of the civil
jurisprudence. He was sometimes invited to take his seat in the
supreme judicature of the Imperial consistory, with the 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. 150 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. 151 Twenty-nine provincial receivers, of whom
eighteen were honored with the title of count, corresponded with
the treasurer; and he extended his jurisdiction over the mines
from whence the precious metals were extracted, over the mints,
in which they were converted into the current coin, and over the
public treasuries of the most important cities, where they were
deposited for the service of the state. The foreign trade of the
empire was regulated by this minister, who directed likewise all
the linen and woollen manufactures, in which the successive
operations of spinning, weaving, and dyeing were executed,
chiefly by women of a servile condition, for the use of the
palace and army. Twenty-six of these institutions are enumerated
in the West, where the arts had been more recently introduced,
and a still larger proportion may be allowed for the industrious
provinces of the East. 152 5. Besides the public revenue, which
an absolute monarch might levy and expend according to his
pleasure, the emperors, in the capacity of opulent citizens,
possessed a very extensive property, which was administered by
the _count_ or treasurer of _the private estate_. Some part had
perhaps been the ancient demesnes of kings and republics; some
accessions might be derived from the families which were
successively invested with the purple; but the most considerable
portion flowed from the impure source of confiscations and
forfeitures. The Imperial estates were scattered through the
provinces, from Mauritania to Britain; but the rich and fertile
soil of Cappadocia tempted the monarch to acquire in that country
his fairest possessions, 153 and either Constantine or his
successors embraced the occasion of justifying avarice by
religious zeal. They suppressed the rich temple of Comana, where
the high priest of the goddess of war supported the dignity of a
sovereign prince; and they applied to their private use the
consecrated lands, which were inhabited by six thousand subjects
or slaves of the deity and her ministers. 154 But these were not
the valuable inhabitants: the plains that stretch from the foot
of Mount 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. 155 The demesnes of Cappadocia were important
enough to require the inspection of a count; 156 officers of an
inferior rank were stationed in the other parts of the empire;
and the deputies of the private, as well as those of the public,
treasurer were maintained in the exercise of their independent
functions, and encouraged to control the authority of the
provincial magistrates. 157 6, 7. The chosen bands of cavalry and
infantry, which guarded the person of the emperor, were under the
immediate command of the _two counts of the domestics_. The whole
number consisted of three thousand five hundred men, divided into
seven _schools_, or troops, of five hundred each; and in the
East, this honorable service was almost entirely appropriated to
the Armenians. Whenever, on public ceremonies, they were drawn up
in the courts and porticos of the palace, their lofty stature,
silent order, and splendid arms of silver and gold, displayed a
martial pomp not unworthy of the Roman majesty. 158 From the
seven schools two companies of horse and foot were selected, of
the _protectors_, whose advantageous station was the hope and
reward of the most deserving soldiers. They mounted guard in the
interior apartments, and were occasionally despatched into the
provinces, to execute with celerity and vigor the orders of their
master. 159 The counts of the domestics had succeeded to the
office of the Prætorian præfects; like the præfects, they aspired
from the service of the palace to the command of armies.

142 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. 8.]

143 (return) [ By a very singular metaphor, borrowed from the
military character of the first emperors, the steward of their
household was styled the count of their camp, (comes castrensis.)
Cassiodorus very seriously represents to him, that his own fame,
and that of the empire, must depend on the opinion which foreign
ambassadors may conceive of the plenty and magnificence of the
royal table. (Variar. l. vi. epistol. 9.)]

144 (return) [ Gutherius (de Officiis Domûs Augustæ, l. ii. c.
20, l. iii.) has very accurately explained the functions of the
master of the offices, and the constitution of the subordinate
_scrinia_. But he vainly attempts, on the most doubtful
authority, to deduce from the time of the Antonines, or even of
Nero, the origin of a magistrate who cannot be found in history
before the reign of Constantine.]

145 (return) [ Tacitus (Annal. xi. 22) says, that the first
quæstors were elected by the people, sixty-four years after the
foundation of the republic; but he is of opinion, that they had,
long before that period, been annually appointed by the consuls,
and even by the kings. But this obscure point of antiquity is
contested by other writers.]

146 (return) [ Tacitus (Annal. xi. 22) seems to consider twenty
as the highest number of quæstors; and Dion (l. xliii. p 374)
insinuates, that if the dictator Cæsar once created forty, it was
only to facilitate the payment of an immense debt of gratitude.
Yet the augmentation which he made of prætors subsisted under the
succeeding reigns.]

147 (return) [ Sueton. in August. c. 65, and Torrent. ad loc.
Dion. Cas. p. 755.]

148 (return) [ The youth and inexperience of the quæstors, who
entered on that important office in their twenty-fifth year,
(Lips. Excurs. ad Tacit. l. iii. D.,) engaged Augustus to remove
them from the management of the treasury; and though they were
restored by Claudius, they seem to have been finally dismissed by
Nero. (Tacit Annal. xiii. 29. Sueton. in Aug. c. 36, in Claud. c.
24. Dion, p. 696, 961, &c. Plin. Epistol. x. 20, et alibi.) In
the provinces of the Imperial division, the place of the quæstors
was more ably supplied by the _procurators_, (Dion Cas. p. 707.
Tacit. in Vit. Agricol. c. 15;) or, as they were afterwards
called, _rationales_. (Hist. August. p. 130.) But in the
provinces of the senate we may still discover a series of
quæstors till the reign of Marcus Antoninus. (See the
Inscriptions of Gruter, the Epistles of Pliny, and a decisive
fact in the Augustan History, p. 64.) From Ulpian we may learn,
(Pandect. l. i. tit. 13,) that under the government of the house
of Severus, their provincial administration was abolished; and in
the subsequent troubles, the annual or triennial elections of
quæstors must have naturally ceased.]

149 (return) [ Cum patris nomine et epistolas ipse dictaret, et
edicta conscrib eret, orationesque in senatu recitaret, etiam
quæstoris vice. Sueton, in Tit. c. 6. The office must have
acquired new dignity, which was occasionally executed by the heir
apparent of the empire. Trajan intrusted the same care to
Hadrian, his quæstor and cousin. See Dodwell, Prælection.
Cambden, x. xi. p. 362-394.]

150 (return) [ Terris edicta daturus; Supplicibus
responsa.—Oracula regis Eloquio crevere tuo; nec dignius unquam
Majestas meminit sese Romana locutam.——Claudian in Consulat.
Mall. Theodor. 33. See likewise Symmachus (Epistol. i. 17) and
Cassiodorus. (Variar. iv. 5.)]

151 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. 30. Cod. Justinian. l.
xii. tit. 24.]

152 (return) [ In the departments of the two counts of the
treasury, the eastern part of the _Notitia_ happens to be very
defective. It may be observed, that we had a treasury chest in
London, and a gyneceum or manufacture at Winchester. But Britain
was not thought worthy either of a mint or of an arsenal. Gaul
alone possessed three of the former, and eight of the latter.]

153 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xxx. leg. 2, and Godefroy
ad loc.]

154 (return) [ Strabon. Geograph. l. xxii. p. 809, [edit.
Casaub.] The other temple of Comana, in Pontus, was a colony from
that of Cappadocia, l. xii. p. 835. The President Des Brosses
(see his Saluste, tom. ii. p. 21, [edit. Causub.]) conjectures
that the deity adored in both Comanas was Beltis, the Venus of
the east, the goddess of generation; a very different being
indeed from the goddess of war.]

155 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. x. tit. vi. de Grege Dominico.
Godefroy has collected every circumstance of antiquity relative
to the Cappadocian horses. One of the finest breeds, the
Palmatian, was the forfeiture of a rebel, whose estate lay about
sixteen miles from Tyana, near the great road between
Constantinople and Antioch.]

156 (return) [ Justinian (Novell. 30) subjected the province of
the count of Cappadocia to the immediate authority of the
favorite eunuch, who presided over the sacred bed-chamber.]

157 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xxx. leg. 4, &c.]

158 (return) [ Pancirolus, p. 102, 136. The appearance of these
military domestics is described in the Latin poem of Corippus, de
Laudibus Justin. l. iii. 157-179. p. 419, 420 of the Appendix
Hist. Byzantin. Rom. 177.]

159 (return) [ Ammianus Marcellinus, who served so many years,
obtained only the rank of a protector. The first ten among these
honorable soldiers were _Clarissimi_.]

The perpetual intercourse between the court and the provinces was
facilitated by the construction of roads and the institution of
posts. But these beneficial establishments were accidentally
connected with a pernicious and intolerable abuse. Two or three
hundred _agents_ or messengers were employed, under the
jurisdiction of the master of the offices, to announce the names
of the annual consuls, and the edicts or victories of the
emperors. They insensibly assumed the license of reporting
whatever they could observe of the conduct either of magistrates
or of private citizens; and were soon considered as the eyes of
the monarch, 160 and the scourge of the people. Under the warm
influence of a feeble reign, they multiplied to the incredible
number of ten thousand, disdained the mild though frequent
admonitions of the laws, and exercised in the profitable
management of the posts a rapacious and insolent oppression.
These official spies, who regularly corresponded with the palace,
were encouraged by favor and reward, anxiously to watch the
progress of every treasonable design, from the faint and latent
symptoms of disaffection, to the actual preparation of an open
revolt. Their careless or criminal violation of truth and justice
was covered by the consecrated mask of zeal; and they might
securely aim their poisoned arrows at the breast either of the
guilty or the innocent, who had provoked their resentment, or
refused to purchase their silence. A faithful subject, of Syria
perhaps, or of Britain, was exposed to the danger, or at least to
the dread, of being dragged in chains to the court of Milan or
Constantinople, to defend his life and fortune against the
malicious charge of these privileged informers. The ordinary
administration was conducted by those methods which extreme
necessity can alone palliate; and the defects of evidence were
diligently supplied by the use of torture. 161

160 (return) [ Xenophon, Cyropæd. l. viii. Brisson, de Regno
Persico, l. i No 190, p. 264. The emperors adopted with pleasure
this Persian metaphor.]

161 (return) [ For the _Agentes in Rebus_, see Ammian. l. xv. c.
3, l. xvi. c. 5, l. xxii. c. 7, with the curious annotations of
Valesius. Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xxvii. xxviii. xxix. Among the
passages collected in the Commentary of Godefroy, the most
remarkable is one from Libanius, in his discourse concerning the
death of Julian.]

The deceitful and dangerous experiment of the criminal
_quæstion_, as it is emphatically styled, was admitted, rather
than approved, in the jurisprudence of the Romans. They applied
this sanguinary mode of examination only to servile bodies, whose
sufferings were seldom weighed by those haughty republicans in
the scale of justice or humanity; but they would never consent to
violate the sacred person of a citizen, till they possessed the
clearest evidence of his guilt. 162 The annals of tyranny, from
the reign of Tiberius to that of Domitian, circumstantially
relate the executions of many innocent victims; but, as long as
the faintest remembrance was kept alive of the national freedom
and honor, the last hours of a Roman were secured from the danger
of ignominions torture. 163 The conduct of the provincial
magistrates was not, however, regulated by the practice of the
city, or the strict maxims of the civilians. They found the use
of torture established not only among the slaves of oriental
despotism, but among the Macedonians, who obeyed a limited
monarch; among the Rhodians, who flourished by the liberty of
commerce; and even among the sage Athenians, who had asserted and
adorned the dignity of human kind. 164 The acquiescence of the
provincials encouraged their governors to acquire, or perhaps to
usurp, a discretionary power of employing the rack, to extort
from vagrants or plebeian criminals the confession of their
guilt, till they insensibly proceeded to confound the distinction
of rank, and to disregard the privileges of Roman citizens. The
apprehensions of the subjects urged them to solicit, and the
interest of the sovereign engaged him to grant, a variety of
special exemptions, which tacitly allowed, and even authorized,
the general use of torture. They protected all persons of
illustrious or honorable rank, bishops and their presbyters,
professors of the liberal arts, soldiers and their families,
municipal officers, and their posterity to the third generation,
and all children under the age of puberty. 165 But a fatal maxim
was introduced into the new jurisprudence of the empire, that in
the case of treason, which included every offence that the
subtlety of lawyers could derive from a _hostile intention_
towards the prince or republic, 166 all privileges were
suspended, and all conditions were reduced to the same
ignominious level. As the safety of the emperor was avowedly
preferred to every consideration of justice or humanity, the
dignity of age and the tenderness of youth were alike exposed to
the most cruel tortures; and the terrors of a malicious
information, which might select them as the accomplices, or even
as the witnesses, perhaps, of an imaginary crime, perpetually
hung over the heads of the principal citizens of the Roman world.
167

162 (return) [ The Pandects (l. xlviii. tit. xviii.) contain the
sentiments of the most celebrated civilians on the subject of
torture. They strictly confine it to slaves; and Ulpian himself
is ready to acknowledge that Res est fragilis, et periculosa, et
quæ veritatem fallat.]

163 (return) [ In the conspiracy of Piso against Nero, Epicharis
(libertina mulier) was the only person tortured; the rest were
_intacti tormentis_. It would be superfluous to add a weaker, and
it would be difficult to find a stronger, example. Tacit. Annal.
xv. 57.]

164 (return) [ Dicendum... de Institutis Atheniensium, Rhodiorum,
doctissimorum hominum, apud quos etiam (id quod acerbissimum est)
liberi, civesque torquentur. Cicero, Partit. Orat. c. 34. We may
learn from the trial of Philotas the practice of the Macedonians.
(Diodor. Sicul. l. xvii. p. 604. Q. Curt. l. vi. c. 11.)]

165 (return) [ Heineccius (Element. Jur. Civil. part vii. p. 81)
has collected these exemptions into one view.]

166 (return) [ This definition of the sage Ulpian (Pandect. l.
xlviii. tit. iv.) seems to have been adapted to the court of
Caracalla, rather than to that of Alexander Severus. See the
Codes of Theodosius and ad leg. Juliam majestatis.]

167 (return) [ Arcadius Charisius is the oldest lawyer quoted to
justify the universal practice of torture in all cases of
treason; but this maxim of tyranny, which is admitted by Ammianus
with the most respectful terror, is enforced by several laws of
the successors of Constantine. See Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit. xxxv.
majestatis crimine omnibus æqua est conditio.]

These evils, however terrible they may appear, were confined to
the smaller number of Roman subjects, whose dangerous situation
was in some degree compensated by the enjoyment of those
advantages, either of nature or of fortune, which exposed them to
the jealousy of the monarch. The obscure millions of a great
empire have much less to dread from the cruelty than from the
avarice of their masters, and _their_ humble happiness is
principally affected by the grievance of excessive taxes, which,
gently pressing on the wealthy, descend with accelerated weight
on the meaner and more indigent classes of society. An ingenious
philosopher 168 has calculated the universal measure of the
public impositions by the degrees of freedom and servitude; and
ventures to assert, that, according to an invariable law of
nature, it must always increase with the former, and diminish in
a just proportion to the latter. But this reflection, which would
tend to alleviate the miseries of despotism, is contradicted at
least by the history of the Roman empire; which accuses the same
princes of despoiling the senate of its authority, and the
provinces of their wealth. Without abolishing all the various
customs and duties on merchandises, which are imperceptibly
discharged by the apparent choice of the purchaser, the policy of
Constantine and his successors preferred a simple and direct mode
of taxation, more congenial to the spirit of an arbitrary
government. 169

168 (return) [ Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, l. xii. c. 13.]

169 (return) [ Mr. Hume (Essays, vol. i. p. 389) has seen this
importance with some degree of perplexity.]