h

XVII.

nent officers of the state and army, in the habit of CHAP.
senators; and the useless fasces, armed with the once
formidable axes, were borne before them by the lic-
tors. 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 fel-
low-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 Alex-
andria, 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 am-
phitheatre,' cost four thousand pounds of gold, (about)

h Cernis et armorum proceres legumque potentes :
Patricios sumunt habitus; et more Gabino
Discolor incedit legio, positisque parumper
Bellorum signis, sequitur vexilla Quirini.
Lictori cedunt aquila, ridetque togatus
Miles, et in mediis effulget curia castris.

Claud. in iv Cons. Honorii, 5.

strictasque procul radiare secures.

In Cons. Prob. 229.

i See Valesius ad Ammian. Marcellin. 1. xxii. c. 7.

j Auspice mox læto sonuit clamore tribunal;
Te fastos ineunte quater; solemnia ludit
Omnia libertas: deductum vindice morem
Lex servat, famulusque jugo laxatus herili
Ducitur, et grato remeat securior ictu.

Claudian in iv Cons. Honorii, 611.

k Celebrant quidem solemnes istos dies, omnes ubique urbes quæ sub legibus agunt; et Roma de more, et Constantinopolis de imitatione, et Antiochia pro luxu, et discincta Carthago, et domus fluminis Alexandria, sed Treviri Principis beneficio. Ausonius in Grat. Actione.

1 Claudian (in Cons. Mall. Theodori, 279-331) describes, in a lively and

CHAP.
XVII.

The patri

cians.

war.

one hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling: and
if so heavy an expense surpassed the faculties or the
inclination 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,
the
year,
and to enjoy, during the remainder of the
undisturbed contemplation of their own greatness.
They no longer presided in the national councils;
they no longer executed the resolutions of peace or
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 re-
public, were conscious that they acquired an additional
splendour and majesty as often as they assumed the
annual honours 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

fanciful manner, the various games of the circus, the theatre, and the amphitheatre, exhibited by the new consul. The sanguinary combats of gladiators had already been prohibited.

m

Procopius in Hist. Arcana, c. 26.

n In Consulatu honos sine labore suscipitur. (Mamertin. in Panegyr. Vet. xi. 2). This exalted idea of the consulship is borrowed from an Oration (iii. p. See the Abbé 107) pronounced by Julian in the servile court of Constantius.

de la Bleterie (Memoires de l'Acadenie, tom. xxiv. p. 289), who delights to pursue the vestiges of the old constitution, and who sometimes finds them in his copious fancy.

XVII.

honours, the offices of the state, and the ceremonies CHAP. 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 honours, 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

• Intermarriages between the Patricians and Plebeians were prohibited by the laws of the XII Tables; and the uniform operations of human nature may attest that the custom survived the law. See in Livy (iv. 1—6) the pride of family urged by the consul, and the rights of mankind asserted by the tribune Canuleius. P See the animated pictures drawn by Sallust, in the Jugurthine war, of the pride of the nobles, and even of the virtuous Metellus, who was unable to brook the idea that the honour of the consulship should be bestowed on the obscure merit of his lieutenant Marius (c. 64). Two hundred years before, the race of the Metelli themselves were confounded among the Plebeians of Rome; and from the etymology of their name of Cæcilius, there is reason to believe that those haughty nobles derived their origin from a sutler.

a In the year of Rome 800, very few remained, not only of the old Patrician families, but even of those which had been created by Cæsar and Augustus. (Tacit. Annal. xi. 25). The family of Scaurus (a branch of the Patrician Æmilii) was degraded so low that his father, who exercised the trade of a charcoal-merchant, left him only ten slaves, and somewhat less than three hundred pounds sterling. (Valerius Maximus, 1. iv. c. 4. n. 11; Aurel. Victor in Scauro.). The family was saved from oblivion by the merit of the son.

XVII.

S

CHAP. of perpetuating an order, which was still considered as honourable 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 honourable rank was bestowed on them for life; and as they were usually favourites, 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.t

Tacit. Annal. xi. 25. Dion Cassius, 1. lii. p. 693. The virtues of Agricola, who was created a Patrician by the emperor Vespasian, reflected honour on that ancient order; but his ancestors had not any claim beyond an Equestrian nobility.

s This failure would have been almost impossible if it were true, as Casaubon compels Aurelius Victor to affirm (ad Sueton. in Cæsar. c. 42. See Hist. August.. p. 203, and Casaubon Comment. p. 220), that Vespasian created at once a thousand Patrician families. But this extravagant number is too much even for the whole Senatorial order, unless we should include all the Roman knights who were distinguished by the permission of wearing the laticlave.

Zosimus, 1. ii. p. 118; and Godefroy ad Cod. Theodos. 1. vi. tit. vi.

XVII.

torian præ

II. The fortunes of the Prætorian præfects were CHAP. essentially different from those of the consuls and patricians. The latter saw their ancient greatness The Præevaporate in a vain title. The former, rising by de- fects. grees 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 Vizirs 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