abolished by the humanity of accusers, witnesses, | sanctified by the judgment of his country." The Abolition or ob laws. barbarous practice of wearing arms in the midst of peace, and the bloody maxims of honour, were unknown to the Romans; and, during the two purest ages, from the establishment of equal freedom to the end of the Punic wars, the city was never disturbed by sedition, and rarely polluted with atrocious crimes. The failure of penal laws was more sensibly felt when every vice was inflamed by faction at home and dominion abroad. In the time of Cicero, each private citizen enjoyed the privilege of anarchy; each minister of the republic was exalted to the temptations of regal power, and their virtues are entitled to the warmest praise as the spontaneous fruits of nature or philosophy. After a triennial indulgence of lust, rapine, and cruelty, Verres, the tyrant of Sicily, could only be sued for the pecuniary restitution of three hundred thousand pounds sterling; and such was the temper of the laws, the judges, and perhaps the accuser himself, that on refunding the thirteenth part of his plunder, Verres could retire to an easy and luxurious exile. In the absence of penal laws and the livion of penal insufficiency of civil actions, the peace and justice of the city were imperfectly maintained by the private jurisdiction of the citizens. The malefactors who replenish our gaols, are the outcasts of society, and the crimes for which they suffer may be commonly ascribed to ignorance, poverty, and brutal appetite. For the perpetration of similar enormities, a vile plebeian might claim and abuse the sacred character of a member of the republic: but, on the proof or suspicion of guilt, the slave, or the stranger, was nailed to a cross, and this strict and summary justice might be exercised without restraint over the greatest part of the populace of Rome. Each family contained a domestic tribunal, which was not confined, like that of the prætor, to the cognizance of external actions: virtuous principles and habits were inculcated by the discipline of education; and the Roman father was accountable to the state for the manners of his children, since he disposed, without appeal, of their life, their liberty, and their inheritance. In some pressing emergencies, the citizen was authorized to avenge his private or public wrongs. The consent of the Jewish, the Athenian, and the Roman laws, approved the slaughter of the nocturnal thief; though in open day-light a robber could not be slain without some previous evidence of danger and complaint. Whoever surprised an adulterer in his nuptial bed might freely exercise his revenge; the most bloody or wanton outrage was excused by the provocation;t nor was it before the reign of Augustus that the husband was reduced to weigh the rank of the offender, or that the parent was condemned to sacrifice his daughter with her guilty seducer. After the expulsion of the kings, the ambitious Romanquent use of extraordinary pains, proceeded from who should dare to assume their title or imitate their tyranny, was devoted to the infernal gods: each of his fellow-citizens was armed with a sword of justice; and the act of Brutus, however repugnant to gratitude or prudence, had been already The first speech of Lysias (Reiske, Orator. Græc. tom. v. p. 2—48.) is in defence of a husband who had killed the adulterer. The right of husbands and fathers at Rome and Athens is discussed with much learning by Dr. Taylor. (Lectiones Lysiaca, c. xi. in Reiske, tom. vi. p. 301-308.) *See Casaubon ad Athenæum, l. i. c. 5. p. 19. Percurrent rapha. nique mugilesque. (Catull. p. 41, 42. edit. Vossian.) Hunc mugilis intrat. (Juvenal. Satir. x. 317.) Hunc perminxere calones. (Horat. 1. i. Satir. ii. 44.) Familiæ stuprandum dedit. fraudi non fuit. (Val. Maxim. 1. vi. c. 1. No. 13.) This law is noticed by Livy (ii. 8.) and Plutarch, (in Publicola, tom. i. p. 197.) and it fully justifies the public opinion on the death of Cæsar, which Suetonius could publish under the imperial government. Jure casus existimatur, (in Julio, c. 76.) Read the letters that passed between Cicero and Marius a few months after the ides of March, (ad Fam. xi. 27, 28.) *. Πρώτοι δε Αθηναιοι τον τε σίδηρον κατέθεντο. Thucydid. l. i. c. 6. The historian who considers this circumstance as the test of civilization, would disdain the barbarism of a European court. y He first rated at millies (800,000l.) the damages of Sicily, (Divi The first imperfect attempt to re- Revival of capistore the proportion of crimes and tal punishments. punishments, was made by the dictator Sylla, who, in the midst of his sanguinary triumph, aspired to restrain the licence, rather than to oppress the liberty, of the Romans. He gloried in the arbitrary proscription of four thousand seven hundred citizens. But in the character of a legislator, he respected the prejudices of the times; and instead of pronouncing a sentence of death against the robber or assassin, the general who betrayed an army, or the magistrate who ruined a province, Sylla was content to aggravate the pecuniary damages by the penalty of exile, or, in more constitutional language, by the interdiction of fire and water. The Cornelian, and afterwards the Pompeian, and Julian, laws introduced a new system of criminal jurisprudence ; ↳ and the emperors, from Augustus to Justinian, disguised their increasing rigour under the names of the original authors. But the invention and fre the desire to extend and conceal the progress of despotism. In the condemnation of illustrious Romans, the senate was always prepared to confound, at the will of their masters, the judicial and legislative powers. It was the duty of the governors to natio in Caecilium, c. 5.) which he afterwards reduced to quadringenties, (320,000/-1. Actio in Verrem, c. 18.) and was finally content with tri cies, (24,000l.) Plutarch (in Ciceron. tom. iii. p. 1584.) has not dis. sembled the popular suspicion and report. z Verres lived near thirty years after his trial, till the second triumvirate, when he was proscribed by the taste of Mark Antony, for the sake of his Corinthian plate. (Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiv. 3.) a Such is the number assigned by Valerius Maximus. (1. ix, c. 2. No. 1.) Florus (iv. 21.) distinguishes 2000 senators and knights. Appian, (de Bell. Civil. 1. i. c. 95. tom. ii. p. 133. edit. Schweigæuser) more accurately computes 40 victims of the senatorian rank, and 1600 of the equestrian census or order. b For the penal law, (Leges Cornelia, Pompeiæ, Juliæ, of Sylla, Pompey, and the Cæsars) see the sentences of Paulus, (1. iv. tit. xviii -xxx. p. 497-528. edit. Schulting,) the Gregorian Code, (Fragment. 1. xix. p. 705, 706, in Schulting,) the Collatio Legum Mosaicarum et Romanarum, (tit. i. xv.) the Theodosian Code, (1. ix.) the Code of Justinian, (1. ix.) the Pandects, (xlviii.) the Institutes, (I. iv. tit. xviii.) and the Greek version of Theophilus, (p. 917–926.) maintain the peace of their province, by the arbitrary | perpetual exile in two separate islands. d A sin, a vice, a crime, are the obMeasure of guilt. jects of theology, ethics, and jurisprudence. Whenever their judgments agree, they corroborate each other; but as often as they differ, a prudent legislator appreciates the guilt and punishment according to the measure of social injury. On this principle, the most daring attack on the life and property of a private citizen is judged less atrocious than the crime of treason or rebellion, which invades the majesty of the republic: the obsequious civilians unanimously pronounced, that the republic is contained in the person of its chief: and the edge of the Julian law was sharpened by the incessant diligence of the emperors. The licentious commerce of the sexes may be tolerated as an impulse of nature, or forbidden as a source of disorder and corruption; but the fame, the fortunes, the family of the husband, are seriously injured by the adultery of the wife. The wisdom of Augustus, after curbing the freedom of revenge, applied to this domestic offence the animadversion of the laws; and the guilty parties, after the payment of heavy forfeitures and fines, were condemned to long or e It was a guardian who had poisoned his ward. The crime was atrocious: yet the punishment is reckoned by Suetonius, (c. 9.) among the acts in which Galba showed himself acer, vehemens, et in delictis coercendis immodicus. d The abactores or abigeatores, who drove one horse, or two mares or oxen, or five hogs, or ten goats, were subject to capital punishments. (Paul. Sentent. Recept. 1. iv. tit. xviii. p. 497, 498.) Hadrian, (ad. Concil. Bætica,) most severe where the offence was most frequent, condemns the criminals ad gladium, ludi damnationem. (Ulpian, de Officio Proconsulis, 1. viii. in Collatione Legum Mosaic, et Rom. tit. xi. p. 235.) e Till the publication of the Julius Paulus of Schulting (1. ii. tit. xxvi. p. 317-323) it was affirmed and believed, that the Julian laws puuished adultery with death; and the mistake arose from the fraud or error of Tribonian. Yet Lipsius had suspected the truth from the narrative of Tacitus, (Annal. ii. 50. iii. 24. iv. 2.) and even from the practice of Augustus, who distinguished the treasonable frailties of his female kindred. f In cases of adultery, Severus confined to the husband the right of public accusation. (Cod. Justinian, 1. ix. tit. ix. leg. 1.) Nor is this privilege unjust-so different are the effects of male or female infidelity. g Timon (f. i.) and Theopompus (1. xliii. apud Athenæum, I. xii. p. 517) describe the luxury and lust of the Etruscans: TOU ME TO YE χαιρεσι συνόντες τοις παισι και τοις μειρακίοις. About the same period (A. U. C. 445.) the Roman youth studied in Etruria. (Liv. ix. 36.) h The Persians had been corrupted in the same school: an' EXANvor μabovτes Tail Moyota. (Herodot, I. i. c. 135.) A curious dissertation might be formed on the introduction of pæderasty after the Religion Unnatural vice. i pronounces an equal censure against the infidelity m perors. A new spirit of legislation, respectRigour of the able even in its error, arose in the em- christian empire with the religion of Constantine." The laws of Moses were received as the divine original of justice, and the christian princes adapted their penal statutes to the degrees of moral and religious turpitude. Adultery was first declared to be time of Homer, its progress among the Greeks of Asia and Europe, the vehemence of their passions, and the thin device of virtue and friend. ship which amused the philosophers of Athens. But, scelera ostendi oportet dum puniuntur, abscondi flagitia. i The name, the date, and the provisions of this law, are equally doubtful. (Gravina, Opp. p. 432, 433. Heineccius, Hist. Jur. Rom. No. 108. Ernesti, Clav. Ciceron. in Indice Legum.) But I will observe that the nefanda Venus of the honest German is styled aversa by the more polite Italian. k See the oration of Eschines against the catamite Timarchus, (in Reiske, Orator. Græc. tom. iii. p. 21-184.) 1 A crowd of disgraceful passages will force themselves on the me mory of the classic reader: I will only remind him of the cool decla. ration of Ovid: Odi concubitus qui non utrumque resolvunt. Hoc est quod puerum tangar amore minus. m Ælius Lampridius, in Vit. Heliogabal. in Hist. August. p. 112 Aurelius Victor, in Philippo, Codex Theodos. 1. ix. tit. vii. leg. 7. and Godefroy's Commentary, tom. iii. p. 63. Theodosius abolished the subterraneous brothels of Rome, in which the prostitution of both sexes was acted with impunity. n See the laws of Constantine and his successors against adultery, sodomy, &c. in the Theodosian (1. ix. tit. vii, leg. 7. I. xi. tit. xxx. leg. 1. 4.) and Justinian Codes, (1. ix, tit. ix. leg. 30, 31.) These princes speak the language of passion as well as of justice, and fraudulently ascribe their own severity to the first Cæsars. ds. Re imporar crisprudent ch modest cates the by the em the mac sure that Seat y the pur esistance! believe, and the p ritv : most ancient office of a prince: it was exercised by the Roman kings, and abused by Tarquin; who alone, without law or council, pronounced his arbitrary judgments. The first consuls succeeded to this regal prerogative; but the sacred right of appeal soon abolished the jurisdiction of the magistrates, and all public causes were decided by the supreme tribunal of the people. But a wild demo heroes of Athens might sometimes applaud the happiness of the Persian, whose fate depended on the caprice of a single tyrant. Some salutary restraints, imposed by the people on their own passions, were at once the cause and effect of the gravity and temperance of the Romans. The right of accusation was confined to the magistrates. A vote of the thirty-five tribes could inflict a fine; but the cognizance of all capital crimes was reserved by a fundamental law to the assembly of the centuries, in which the weight of influence and property was sure to preponderate. Repeated proclamations and adjournments were interposed, to allow time for prejudice and resentment to subside; the whole pro a capital offence: the frailty of the sexes was assimilated to poison or assassination, to sorcery or parricide; the same penalties were inflicted on the passive and active guilt of pæderasty; and all criminals of free or servile condition were either drowned or beheaded, or cast alive into the avenging flames. The adulterers were spared by the common sympathy of mankind; but the lovers of their own sex were pursued by general and pious indignation:cracy, superior to the forms, too often disdains the the impure manners of Greece still prevailed in the essential principles, of justice: the pride of descities of Asia, and every vice was fomented by thepotism was envenomed by plebeian envy, and the celibacy of the monks and clergy. Justinian relaxed the punishment at least of female infidelity; the guilty spouse was only condemned to solitude and penance, and at the end of two years she might be recalled to the arms of a forgiving husband. But the same emperor declared himself the implacable the enemy of unmanly lust, and the cruelty of his persecution can scarcely be excused by the purity of his motives.° In defiance of every principle of justice, he stretched to past as well as future offences the operations of his edicts, with the previous allowance of a short respite for confession and pardon. A painful death was inflicted by the amputation of the sinful instrument, or the insertion of sharp reeds into the pores and tubes of most ex-ceeding might be annulled by a seasonable omen, quisite sensibility; and Justinian defended the or the opposition of a tribune; and such popular propriety of the execution, since the criminals would trials were commonly less formidable to innocence have lost their hands, had they been convicted of than they were favourable to guilt. But this union sacrilege. In this state of disgrace and agony, two of the judicial and legislative powers left it doubtbishops, Isaiah of Rhodes, and Alexander of Dios-ful whether the accused party was pardoned or polis, were dragged through the streets of Constantinople, while their brethren were admonished by the voice of a crier, to observe this awful lesson, and not to pollute the sanctity of their character. Perhaps these prelates were innocent. A sentence of death and infamy was often founded on the slight and suspicious evidence of a child or a servant: the guilt of the green faction, of the rich, and of the enemies of Theodora, was presumed by the judges, and pæderasty became the crime of those to whom no crime could be imputed. A French philosopher has dared to remark, that whatever is secret must be doubtful, and that our natural horror of vice may be abused as an engine of tyranny. But the favourable persuasion of the same writer, that a legislator may confide in the taste and reason of mankind, is impeached by the unwelcome discovery of the antiquity and extent of the disease. Judgments of the on f and am of thi The free citizens of Athens and the people. Rome enjoyed, in all criminal cases, the invaluable privilege of being tried by their country. 1. The administration of justice is the Justinian, Novel. lxxvii, exxxiv. exli. Procopius in Anecdot. c. 11. 16. with the notes of Alemannus. Theophanes, p. 151. Cedrenus, p. 368. Zonaras, 1. xiv. p. 64. P Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, 1. xii. c. 6. That eloquent philosopher conciliates the rights of liberty and of nature, which should never be placed in opposition to each other. For the corruption of Palestine, 2000 years before the christian era, see the history and laws of Moses. Ancient Gaul is stigmatized by Diodorus Siculus, (tom. i. 1. v. p. 356.) China by the Mahometan and christian travellers, (Ancient Relations of India and China, p. 34. translated by Renaudot, and his bitter critic the Pére Premare, Lettres Edifiautes, tom. xix. p. 435.) and native America by the Spanish historiaus, (Garcillasso de la Vega, 1. iii. c. 13. Rycaut's translation; and acquitted; and in the defence of an illustrious client, the orators of Rome and Athens address their arguments to the policy and benevolence, as well as to the justice, of their sovereign. 2. The task of convening the citizens for the trial of each offender became more difficult, as the citizens and the offenders continually multiplied; and the ready expedient was adopted of delegating the jurisdiction of the people to the ordinary magistrates, or to extraordinary inquisitors. In the first ages these questions were rare and occasional. In the beginning of the seventh century of Rome they were made perpetual: four prætors were annually empowered to sit in judgment on the state offences of treason, extortion, peculation, and bribery; and Sylla added new prætors and new questions for those crimes which more directly injure the safety of individuals. By these inquisitors the trial was prepared and directed; but they could only pronounce the sentence of the majority of judges, who with some truth, and more prejudice, have been comSelect judges. pared to the English juries. To dis Dictionnaire de Bayle, tom. iii. p. 88.) I believe, and hope, that the negroes, in their own country, were exempt from this moral pestilence. The important subject of the public questions and judgments at Rome is explained with much learning, and in a classic style, by Charles Sigonius; (I. iii. de Judiciis, in Opp. tom. iii. 679-864.) and a good abridgment may be found in the Republique Romaine of Beaufort, (tom. ii. 1. v. p. 1-121.) Those who wish for more abstruse law, may study Noodt, (de Jurisdictione et Imperio Libri duo, tom. i. p. 93-134.) Heineccius, (ad Pandect. 1. i. et ii. ad Institut. I. iv. tit. xvii. Element. ad Antiquitat.) and Gravina. (Opp. 230-251.) The office, both at Rome and in England, must be considered as an occasional duty, and not a magistracy or profession. But the obli gation of a unanimous verdict is peculiar to our laws, which condemn charge this important though burthensome office, | maxims of the stoics, the example of the bravest an annual list of ancient and respectable citizens was formed by the prætor. After many constitutional struggles, they were chosen in equal numbers from the senate, the equestrian order, and the people; four hundred and fifty were appointed for single questions; and the various rolls or decuries of judges must have contained the names of some thousand Romans, who represented the judicial authority of the state. In each particular cause, a sufficient number was drawn from the urn; their integrity was guarded by an oath; the mode of ballot secured their independence; the suspicion of partiality was removed by the mutual challenges of the accuser and defendant; and the judges of Milo, by the retrenchment of fifteen on each side, were reduced to fifty-one voices or tablets, of acquittal, of condemnation, or of favourable doubt. 3. In his civil jurisdiction, the prætor of the city was truly a judge, and almost a legislator; but as soon as he had prescribed the action of law, he often referred to a delegate the determination of the fact. With the increase of legal proceedings, the tribunal of the centumvirs, in which he presided, acquired more weight and reputation. But whether he acted alone, or with the advice of his council, the most absolute powers might be trusted to a magistrate who was annually chosen by the votes of the people. The rules and precautions of freedom have required some explanation; the order of despotism is simple and inanimate. Before the age of Justinian, or perhaps of Diocletian, the decuries of Roman judges had sunk to an empty title; the humble ad vice of the assessors might be accepted Assessors. or despised; and in each tribunal the civil and criminal jurisdiction was administered by a single magistrate, who was raised and disgraced by the will of the emperor. Voluntary exile A Roman accused of any capital and death. crime might prevent the sentence of the law by voluntary exile, or death. Till his guilt had been legally proved, his innocence was presumed, and his person was free: till the votes of the last century had been counted and declared, he might peaceably secede to any of the allied cities of Italy, or Greece, or Asia." His fame and fortunes were preserved, at least to his children, by this civil death; and he might still be happy in every rational and sensual enjoyment, if a mind accustomed to the ambitious tumult of Rome could support the uniformity and silence of Rhodes or Athens. A bolder effort was required to escape from the tyranny of the Cæsars; but this effort was rendered familiar by the the jurymen to undergo the torture from whence they have exempted the criminal. We are indebted for this interesting fact to a fragment of Asconius Pedianus, who flourished under the reign of Tiberius. The loss of his Commentaries on the Orations of Cicero has deprived us of a valuable fund of historical and legal knowledge. u Polyb. 1. vi. p. 643. The extension of the empire and city of Rome obliged the exile to seek a more distant place of retirement. x Qui de se statuebant, humabantur corpora, manebant testamenta; pretium festinandi. Tacit. Annal. vi. 25. with the Notes of Lipsius. y Julius Paulus, (Sentent. Recept. 1. v. tit. xii. p. 476.) the Pandects, (I. xlviii. tit. xxi.) the Code, (1. ix. tit. 1.) Bynkershoek, (tom. X Romans, and the legal encouragements of suicide. The bodies of condemned criminals were exposed to public ignominy, and their children, a more serious evil, were reduced to poverty by the confiscation of their fortunes. But if the victims of Tiberius and Nero anticipated the decree of the prince or senate, their courage and despatch were recompensed by the applause of the public, the decent honours of burial, and the validity of their testaments. The exquisite avarice and cruelty of Domitian appear to have deprived the unfortunate of this last consolation, and it was still denied even by the clemency of the Antonines. A voluntary death, which, in the case of a capital offence, intervened between the accusation and the sentence, was admitted as a confession of guilt, and the spoils of the deceased were seized by the inhuman claims of the treasury. Yet the civilians have always respected the natural right of a citizen to dispose of his life; and the posthumous disgrace invented by Tarquin to check the despair of his subjects, was never revived or imitated by succeeding tyrants. The powers of this world have indeed lost their dominion over him who is resolved on death; and his arm can only be restrained by the religious apprehension of a future state. Suicides are enumerated by Virgil among the unfortunate, rather than the guilty ; and the poetical fables of the infernal shades could not seriously influence the faith or practice of mankind. But the precepts of the gospel, or the church, have at length imposed a pious servitude on the minds of christians, and condemn them to expect, 'without a murmur, the last stroke of disease or the executioner. The penal statutes form a very small proportion of the sixty-two books of jurisprudence. the Code and Pandects; and, in all judicial proceeding, the life or death of a citizen is determined with less caution and delay than the most ordinary question of covenant or inheritance. This singular distinction, though something may be allowed for the urgent necessity of defending the peace of society, is derived from the nature of criminal and Our duties to the state are civil jurisprudence. simple and uniform; the law by which he is condemned is inscribed not only on brass or marble, but on the conscience of the offender, and his guilt is commonly proved by the testimony of a single fact. But our relations to each other are various and infinite: our obligations are created, annulled, and modified, by injuries, benefits, and promises; and the interpretation of voluntary contracts and testaments, which are often dictated by fraud or Abuses of civil CHAP. XLV. OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 779 of Rome. Character and pontificate of Gregory the first. Death of Justinian, A. D. 565. Nov. 14. ignorance, affords a long and laborious exercise to the sagacity of the judge. The business of life is multiplied by the extent of commerce and dominion, and the residence of the parties in the distant provinces of an empire, is productive of doubt, delay, and inevitable appeals from the local to the supreme magistrate. Justinian, the Greek emperor of Constantinople and the east, was the legal successor of the Latian shepherd who had planted a colony on the banks of the Tiber. In a period of thirteen hundred years, the laws had reluctantly followed the changes of government and manners ; and the laudable desire of conciliating ancient names with recent institutions, destroyed the harmony, and swelled the magnitude, of the obscure and irregular system. The laws which excuse, on any occasions, the ignorance of their subjects, confess their own imperfections; the civil jurisprudence, as it was abridged by Justinian, still continued a mysterious science, and a profitable trade, and the innate perplexity of the study was involved in tenfold darkness by the private industry of the practitioners. The expense of the pursuit sometimes exceeded the value of the prize, and the fairest rights were abandoned by the poverty or prudence of the claimants. Such costly justice might tend to abate the spirit of litigation, but the unequal pressure serves only to increase the influence of the rich, and to aggravate the misery of the poor. By these dilatory and expensive proceedings, the wealthy pleader obtains a more certain advantage than he could hope from the accidental corruption of his judge. The experience of an abuse, from which our own age and country are not perfectly exempt, may sometimes provoke a generous indig-prise, sorrow, and decent modesty, Justin, by the nation, and extort the basty wish of exchanging our elaborate jurisprudence for the simple and summary decrees of a Turkish cadhi. Our calmer reflection will suggest, that such forms and delays are necessary to guard the person and property of the citizen; that the discretion of the judge is the first engine of tyranny, and that the laws of a free people should foresee and determine every question that may probably arise in the exercise of power and the transactions of industry. But the government of Justinian united the evils of liberty and servitude; and the Romans were oppressed at the same time by the multiplicity of their laws and the arbitrary will of their master. DURING the last years of Justinian, his infirm mind was devoted to heavenly contemplation, and he neglected the business of the lower world. His subjects were impatient of the long continuance of his life and reign yet all who were capable of reflection, apprehended the moment of his death, which might involve the capital in tumult, and the empire in civil war. Seven nephews of the childless monarch, the sons or grandsons of his brother and sister, had been educated in the splendour of a princely fortune; they had been shown in high commands to the provinces and armies; their characters were known, their followers were zealous, and as the jealousy of age postponed the declaration of a successor, they might expect with equal hopes the inheritance of their uncle. He expired in his palace, after a reign of thirty-eight years; and the decisive opportunity was embraced by the friends of Justin, the son of Vigilantia. At the hour of midnight, his domestics were awakened by an importunate crowd, who thundered at his door, and obtained admittance by revealing themselves to be the principal members of the senate. These welcome deputies announced the recent and momentous secret of the emperor's decease: reported, or perhaps invented, his dying choice of the best beloved and most deserving of his nephews, and conjured Justin to prevent the disorders of the multitude, if they should perceive, with the return of light, that they were left without a master. After composing his countenance to sur CHAP. XLV. Reign of the younger Justin.—Embassy of the Avars. a See the family of Justin and Justinian in the Familie Byzantinæ of Ducange, p. 89-101. The devout civilians, Ludewig (in Vit. Jus tinian, p. 131.) and Heineccius, (Hist. Juris Roman. p. 374.) have since illustrated the genealogy of their favourite prince. advice of his wife Sophia, submitted to the authority of the senate. He was conducted with speed and silence to the palace; the guards saluted their new sovereign, and the martial and rcligious rites of his coronation were diligently accomplished. By the hands of the proper officers he was invested with the imperial garments, the red buskins, white tunic, and purple robe. A fortunate soldier, whom he instantly promoted to the rank of tribune, encircled his neck with a military collar; four robust youths exalted him on a shield; he stood firm and erect to receive the adoration of his subjects; and their choice was sanctified by the benediction of the patriarch, who imposed the diadem on the head of an orthodox prince. The hippodrome Reign of Justin was already filled with innumerable II. or the multitudes; and no sooner did the emperor appear on his throne, than the voices of the blue and the green factions were confounded in the same loyal acclamations. In the speeches which Justin addressed to the senate and people, he promised to correct the abuses which had disgraced the age of his prede Younger, A. D. 565. Nov. 15.A. D. 574. December. |