CHAP. ance with which the government admitted of XVII. this alternative. Such was the horror for the Increase rian auxiliaries. 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,P and a peculiar name in the Latin language, The introduction of barbarians into the Roman of barba 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 ⚫ Cod. Theod. 1. vii, tit. xiii, leg. 7. According to the historian Socrates, (See Godefroy ad loc.) the same emperor Valens some times required eighty pieces of gold for a recruit. In the following law it is faintly expressed, that slaves shall not be admitted inter op. timas lectissimorum militum turmas. P The person and property of a Roman knight, who had mutilated his two sons, were sold at public auction by order of Augustus. (Sueton. in August. c. 27.) The moderation of that artful usurper proves, that this example of severity was justified by the spirit of the times. Ammianus makes a distinction between the effeminate Italians and the hardy Gauls. (L. xv, c. 12.) Yet only fifteen years afterwards, Valentinian, in a law addressed to the præfect of Gaul, is obliged to enact that these cowardly deserters shall be burnt alive.. (Cod. Theod. 1. vii, tit. xiii, leg. 5.) Their numbers in Illyricum were so considerable, that the province complained of a scarcity of recruits. (Id. leg. 10.) They were called Murci. Murcidus is found in Plautus and Festus, to denote a lazy and cowardly person, who, according to Arnobius and Augustin, was under the immediate protection of the goddess Murcia. From this particular instance of cowardice, murcare is used as synonimous to mutilare, by the writers of the middle Latinity. See Lindenbro ius, and Valesius ad Ammian. Mare cellin. 1. xv, c. 21 XVII profitable to defend than to ravage the provinces, CHAP 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 im, portant commands; and the names of the tribunes, of the counts and dukes, and of the generals themselves, betray a foreign origin, which they no longer condescended to disguise. They were often entrusted with the conduct of a war against their countrymen; and though most of them preferred the ties of allegiance to those of blood, they did not always avoid the guilt, or at least the suspicion, of holding a treasonable correspondence with the enemy, of inviting his invasion, 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 * Malarichus adhibitis Francis quorum ea tempestate in palatio multitudo florebat, erectius jam loquebatur tum uabaturque, Ammian, l. xv, c. 5. XVIL CHAP. 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 shewed his successors the example of bestowing the honours 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 ignorace or contempt of the laws, were incapable of exercising any civil offices, the powers of the human mind were contracted by the irreconcileable 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. Seven ministers of IV. Besides the magistrates and generals, who the palace. at a distance from the court diffused their dele Barbaros omnium primus, ad usque fasces auxerat et trabeas consulares. Ammian. 1. xx, c. 10. Eusebius (in Vit. Constantin. 1. 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, I cannot discover the name of a single barbarian. I should therefore interpret the liberality of that prince, as relative to the or aments, rather than to the office, of the consulship. XVII. gated authority over the provinces and armies, CHAP. the emperor conferred the rank of illustrious on seven of his more immediate servants, to whose fidelity he entrusted his safety, or his counsels, or his treasures. 1. The private apartments of the palace were governed by a favourite eunuch, who, in the language of that age, was styled the præpositus or præfect of the sacred bed-chamber. The cham His duty was to attend the emperor in his hours berlain, of state, or in those of amusement, and to perform about his person all those menial services, which can only derive their splendour from the influence of royalty. Under a prince who deserved to reign, the great chamberlain (for such we may call him) was an 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 superintendants, who regulated the two important provinces, of the magnificence of the wardrobe, and of the luxury of the Cod. Theod. 1, vi, tit. 8, XVII. ter of the offices. CHAP. imperial table." 2. The principal administration of public affairs was committed to the diliThe mas- gence 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 dispatched by an 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 fre 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). Cassiodorius very seriously represents to him, that his own fame, and that of the em pire, must depend on the opinion which foreign ambassadors may conceive of the plenty and magnificence of the royal table. (Variar. 1. vi, epistol. 9.) Gutherius (de Officiis Domûs Augustæ, 1. ii, c. 20, 1. iii) has very accurately explained the functions of the master of the offices, and the constitution of his 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 Constan tine |