End of the persecutions.

dulity, and more practised in the arts of courts, than that of almost any of his contemporaries. On some particular occasions, when the magistrates were exasperated by some personal motives of interest or resentment, when the zeal of the martyrs urged them to forget the rules of prudence, and perhaps of decency, to overturn the altars, to pour out imprecations against the emperors, or to strike the judge as he sat on his tribunal, it may be presumed, that every mode of torture which cruelty could invent or constancy could endure, was exhausted on those devoted victims. Two circumstances, however, have been unwarily mentioned, which insinuate that the general treatment of the christians, who had been apprehended by the officers of justice, was less

The Asiatic christians had every thing to dread from the severity of a bigoted monarch who prepared his measures of violence with such deliberate policy. But a few months had scarcely elapsed, before the edicts pub-intolerable than it is usually imagined to have been. lished by the two western emperors obliged Maximin to suspend the prosecution of his designs: the civil war which he so rashly undertook against Licinius employed all his attention; and the defeat and death of Maximin soon delivered the church from the last and most implacable of her enemies. Probable account In this general view of the persecuof the sufferings tion, which was first authorized by the of the martyrs and confessors, edicts of Diocletian, I have purposely refrained from describing the particular sufferings and deaths of the christian martyrs. It would have been an easy task, from the history of Eusebius, from the declamations of Lactantius, and from the most ancient acts, to collect a long series of horrid and disgustful pictures, and to fill many pages with racks and scourges, with iron hooks and red-hot beds, and with all the variety of tortures which fire and steel, savage beasts and more savage executioners, could inflict on the human body. These melancholy scenes might be enlivened by a crowd of visions and miracles destined either to delay the death, to celebrate the triumph, or to discover, the relics of those canonized saints who suffered for the name of Christ. But I cannot determine what I ought to transcribe, till I am satisfied how much I ought to believe. The gravest of the ecclesiastical historians, Eusebius himself, indirectly confesses, that he has related whatever might redound to the glory, and that he has suppressed all that could tend to the disgrace, of religion. Such an acknowledgment will naturaly excite a suspicion that a writer who has so openly violated one of the fundamental laws of history, has not paid a very strict regard to the observance of the other; and the suspicion will derive additional credit from the character of Eusebius, which was less tinctured with cre

36.

p See Eusebius, 1. viii. c. 14. 1. ix. c. 2-8. Lactantius de M. P. c. These writers agree in representing the arts of Maximin but the former relates the execution of several martyrs, while the latter expressly affirms, occidi servos Dei vetuit.

A few days before his death, he published a very ample edict of toleration, in which he imputes all the severities which the christians suffered to the judges and governors, who had misunderstood his intentions. See the edict in Eusebius, 1. ix. c. 10.

Such is the fair deduction from two remarkable passages in Eusebius, L. viii. c. 2. and de Martyr. Palestin. c. 12. The prudence of the historian has exposed his own character to censure and suspicion. It is well known that he himself had been thrown into prison; and it was suggested that he had purchased his deliverance by some dishonourable compliance. The reproach was urged in his lifetime, and

1. The confessors who were condemned to work in
the mines were permitted, by the humanity or the
negligence of their keepers, to build chapels, and
freely to profess their religion in the midst of those
dreary habitations. 2. The bishops were obliged to
check and to censure the forward zeal of the chris-
tians, who voluntarily threw themselves into the
hands of the magistrates. Some of these were per-
sons oppressed by poverty and debts, who blindly
sought to terminate a miserable existence by a glo-
rious death. Others were allured by the hope that
a short confinement would expiate the sins of a
whole life; and others again were actuated by the
less honourable motive of deriving a plentiful sub-
sistence, and perhaps a considerable profit, from the
alms which the charity of the faithful bestowed on
the prisoners." After the church had triumphed
over all her enemies, the interest as well as vanity
of the captives prompted them to magnify the merit
of their respective sufferings. A convenient distance
of time or place gave an ample scope to the pro-
gress of fiction; and the frequent instances which
might be alleged of holy martyrs, whose wounds
had been instantly healed, whose strength had been
renewed, and whose lost members had miraculously
been restored, were extremely convenient for the
purpose of removing every difficulty, and of silenc-
ing every objection. The most extravagant legends,
as they conduced to the honour of the church, were
applauded by the credulous multitude, counte-
nanced by the power of the clergy, and attested
by the suspicious evidence of ecclesiastical history.
The vague descriptions of exile and Number of
imprisonment, of pain and torture, are martyrs.
so easily exaggerated or softened by the pencil of
an artful orator, that we are naturally induced to

even in his presence, at the council of Tyre. See Tillemout, Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom. viii. part. i. p. 67.

s The ancient, and perhaps authentic, account of the sufferings of Tarachus, and his companions, (Acta Sincera, Ruinart, p. 419-448.) is filled with strong expressions of resentment and contempt, which could not fail of irritating the magistrate, The behaviour of Ædesius to Hierocles, præfect of Egypt, was still more extraordinary, AoyOIS TE και έργοις τον δικαςην #epißaλwv. Euseb. de Martyr. Pales tin. c. 5.

t Euseb. de Martyr. Palestin. c. 13.

u Augustin. Collat. Carthagin. Dei, iii. c. 13. ap. Tillemont. Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom. v. part. i. p. 46. The controversy with the Donatists has reflected some, though perhaps a partial, light on the history of the African church.

for the important purpose of introducing christianity into the world.

We shall conclude this chapter by Conclusion. a melancholy truth, which obtrudes itself on the reluctant mind; that even admitting, without hesitation or inquiry, all that history has recorded, or devotion has feigned, on the subject of martyrdoms, it must still be acknowledged, that the christians, in the course of their intestine dissensions, have inflicted far greater severities on each other, than they had experienced from the zeal of infidels. During the ages of ignorance which followed the subversion of the Roman empire in the west, the bishops of the imperial city extended their dominion over the laity as well as clergy of the Latin church. The fabric of superstition which they had erected, and which might long have defied the feeble efforts of reason, was at length assaulted by a crowd of daring fanatics, who from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, assumed the popular character of reformers. The church of Rome defended by violence the empire which she had acquired by fraud; a system of peace and benevolence was soon disgraced by proscriptions, wars, massacres, and the institution of the holy office. And as the reformers were animated by the love of civil as well as of religious freedom, the catholic princes connected their own interest with that of the clergy, and enforced by fire and the sword the terrors of spiritual censures. In the Netherlands alone, more than one hundred thousand of the subjects of Charles the Fifth are said to have suffered by the

inquire into a fact of a more distinct and stubborn kind; the number of persons who suffered death in consequence of the edicts published by Diocletian, his associates, and his successors. The recent legendaries record whole armies and cities, which were at once swept away by the undistinguishing rage of persecution. The more ancient writers content themselves with pouring out a liberal effusion of loose and tragical invectives, without condescending to ascertain the precise number of those persons who were permitted to seal with their blood their belief of the gospel. From the history of Eusebius, it may however be collected, that only nine bishops were punished with death; and we are assured, by his particular enumeration of the martyrs of Palestine, that no more than ninety-two christians were entitled to that honourable appellation. As we are unacquainted with the degree of episcopal zeal and courage which prevailed at that time, it is not in our power to draw any useful inferences from the former of these facts: but the latter may serve to justify a very important and probable conclusion. According to the distribution of Roman provinces, Palestine may be considered as the sixteenth part of the eastern empire: and since there were some governors, who from a real or affected clemency had preserved their hands unstained with the blood of the faithful," it is reasonable to believe, that the country which had given birth to christianity, produced at least the sixteenth part of the martyrs who suffered death within the dominions of Galerius and Maximin; the whole might consequently amount to about fifteen hun-hand of the executioner; and this extraordinary dred, a number which, if it is equally divided, between the ten years of the persecution, will allow an annual consumption of one hundred and fifty martyrs. Allotting the same proportion to the provinces of Italy, Africa, and perhaps Spain, where, at the end of two or three years, the rigour of the penal laws was either suspended or abolished, the multitude of christians in the Roman empire, on whom a capital punishment was inflicted by a judicial sentence, will be reduced to somewhat less than two thousand persons. Since it cannot be doubted that the christians were more numerous, and their enemies more exasperated, in the time of Diocletian, than they had ever been in any former persecution, this probable and moderate computa-victed of exaggerating the merit and sufferings of tion may teach us to estimate the number of primitive saints and martyrs who sacrificed their lives

x Eusebius de Martyr. Palestin. c. 13. He closes his narration by assuring us, that these were the martyrdoms inflicted in Palestine, during the whole course of the persecution. The fifth chapter of his eighth book, which relates to the province of Thebais in Egypt, may seem to contradict our moderate computation; but it will only lead us to admire the artful management of the historian. Choosing for the scene of the most exquisite cruelty the most remote and sequestered country of the Roman empire, he relates, that in Thebais from ten to one hundred persons had frequently suffered martyrdom in the same day. But when he proceeds to mention his own journey into Egypt, his language insensibly becomes more cautious and moderate. Instead of a large but definite number, he speaks of many christians; (λersc) and most artfully selects two ambiguous words, (isopnaauer, and voMeivavras,) which may signify either what he had seen or what he had heard; either the expectation, or the execution, of the punishment. Having thus provided a secure evasion, he commits the equivocal passage to his readers and translators; justly conceiving that their piety

number is attested by Grotius, a man of genius and learning, who preserved his moderation amidst the fury of contending sects, and who composed the annals of his own age and country, at a time when the invention of printing had facilitated the means of intelligence, and increased the danger of detection. If we are obliged to submit our belief to the authority of Grotius, it must be allowed, that the number of protestants, who were executed in a single province and a single reign, far exceeded that of the primitive martyrs in the space of three centuries, and of the Roman empire. But if the improbability of the fact itself should prevail over the weight of evidence; if Grotius should be con

the reformers; we shall be naturally led to inquire what confidence can be placed in the doubtful and

would induce them to prefer the most favourable sense. There was perhaps some malice in the remark of Theodorus Metochita, that all who, like Eusebius, had been conversant with the Egyptians, delighted in an obscure and intricate style. (See Valesius ad loc.)

y When Palestine was divided into three, the præfecture of the East contained forty-eight provinces. As the ancient distinctions of nations were long since abolished, the Romans distributed the provinces according to a general proportion of their extent and opulence. Ut gloriari possiat nullam se innocentiam peremisse, nam et ipse audivi aliquos gloriantes, quia administratio sua, in hâc parte, fuerit incruenta. Lactant. Institut. Divin. v. 11.

a Grot. Annal, de Rebus Belgicis, 1. i. p. 12. edit. fol.

b Fra-Paolo (Istoria del Concilio Tridentino, 1. iii.) reduces the number of Belgic martyrs to 50,000. In learning and moderation, Fra-Paolo was not inferior to Grotius. The pricrity of time gives some advantage to the evidence of the former, which he loses on the other hand by the distance of Venice from the Netherlands.

imperfect monuments of ancient credulity; what degree of credit can be assigned to a courtly bishop, and a passionate declaimer, who, under the protection of Constantine, enjoyed the exclusive privilege of recording the persecutions inflicted on the christians by the vanquished rivals or disregarded predecessors of their gracious sovereign.

CHAP. XVII.

Foundation of Constantinople.-Political system of Constantine, and his successors.-Military discipline. The palace.-The finances.

THE unfortunate Licinius was the last rival who opposed the greatness, and the last captive who adorned the triumph, of Constantine. After a tranquil and prosperous reign, the conqueror bequeathed to his family the inheritance of the Roman empire; a new capital, a new policy, and a new religion; and the innovations which he established have been embraced and consecrated by succeeding generations. The age of the great Constantine and his sons is filled with important events; but the historian must be oppressed by their number and variety, unless he diligently separates from each other the scenes which are connected only by the order of time. He will describe the political institutions that gave strength and stability to the empire, before he proceeds to relate the wars and revolutions which hastened its decline. He will adopt the division unknown to the ancients of civil and ecclesiastical affairs: the victory of the christians, and their intestine discord, will supply copious and distinct materials both for edification and for scandal.

Design of a new
capital,
A. D. 324.

to address to the senate and people of Rome; but
they were seldom honoured with the presence of
their new sovereign. During the vigour of his age,
Constantine, according to the various exigencies of
peace and war, moved with slow dignity, or with
active diligence, along the frontiers of his extensive
dominions; and was always prepared to take the
field either against a foreign or a domestic enemy.
But as he gradually reached the summit of pros-
perity and the decline of life, he began to meditate
the design of fixing in a more permanent station
the strength as well as majesty of the throne. In
the choice of an advantageous situation, he pre-
ferred the confines of Europe and Asia; to curb,
with a powerful arm, the barbarians who dwelt be
tween the Danube and the Tanais; to watch with
an eye of jealousy the conduct of the Persian mon-
arch, who indignantly supported the yoke of an
ignominious treaty. With these views, Diocletian
had selected and embellished the residence of Ni-
comedia: but the memory of Diocletian was justly
abhorred by the protector of the church; and Con-
stantine was not insensible to the ambition of found-
ing a city which might perpetuate the glory of his
own name. During the late operations Situation of
of the war against Licinius, he had Byzantium.
sufficient opportunity to contemplate, both as a
soldier and as a statesman, the incomparable posi-
tion of Byzantium; and to observe how strongly it
was guarded by nature against an hostile attack,
whilst it was accessible on every side to the benefits
of commercial intercourse. Many ages before Con-
stantine, one of the most judicious historians of
antiquity had described the advantages of a situa-
tion, from whence a feeble colony of Greeks derived
the command of the sea, and the honours of a
flourishing and independent republic.b

a

NOPLE.

If we survey Byzantium in the exDescription of tent which it acquired with the august CONSTANTIname of Constantinople, the figure of the imperial city may be represented under that of an unequal triangle. The obtuse point, which advances towards the east and the shores of Asia, meets and repels the waves of the Thracian Bosphorus. The northern side of the city is bounded by the harbour; and the southern is washed by the Propontis, or sea of Marmara. The basis of the triangle is opposed to the west, and terminates the continent of Europe. But the admirable form and division of the circumjacent land and water cannot, without a more ample explanation, be clearly or

After the defeat and abdication of Licinius, his victorious rival proceeded to lay the foundations of a city destined to reign in future times, the mistress of the east, and to survive the empire and religion of Constantine. The motives, whether of pride or of policy, which first induced Diocletian to withdraw himself from the ancient seat of government, had acquired additional weight by the example of his successors, and the habits of forty years. Rome was insensibly confounded with the dependent kingdoms which had once acknowledged her supremacy; and the country of the Cæsars was viewed with cold indifference by a martial prince, born in the neigh-sufficiently understood. bourhood of the Danube, educated in the courts and armies of Asia, and invested with the purple by the legions of Britain. The Italians, who had received Constantine as their deliverer, submissively obeyed the edicts which he sometimes condescended

a Polybius, 1. iv. p. 423. edit. Casaubon. He observes that the peace of the Byzantines was frequently disturbed, and the extent of their territory contracted, by the inroads of the wild Thracians.

The navigator Byzas, who was styled the son of Neptune, founded the city 656 years before the christian æra. His followers were drawn from Argos and Megara. Byzantium was afterwards rebuilt and forti

The Bosphorus.

The winding channel through which the waters of the Euxine flow with a rapid and incessant course towards the Mediterranean, received the appellation of Bosphorus, a name not less celebrated in the history, than in the

fied by the Spartan general Pausanias. See Scaliger Animadvers. ad Euseb. p. 81. Ducange Constantinopolis, 1. i. part i. cap. 15, 16. With regard to the wars of the Byzantines against Philip, the Gauls, and the kings of Bithynia, we should trust none but the ancient writers who lived before the greatness of the imperial city had excited a spirit of flattery and fiction.

denomination of the Golden Horn. The curve which it describes might be compared to the horn of a stag, or as it should seem, with more propriety, to that of an ox. The epithet of golden was expressive of the riches which every wind wafted from the most distant countries into the secure and capacious port of Constantinople. The river Lycus, formed by the conflux of two little streams, pours into the harbour a perpetual supply of fresh water, which serves to cleanse the bottom, and to invite the periodical shoals of fish to seek their retreat in that convenient recess. As the vicissitudes of tides are scarcely felt in those seas, the constant depth of the harbour allows goods to be landed on the quays without the assistance of boats; and it has been observed, that in many places the largest vessels may rest their prows against the houses, while their sterns are floating in the water." From the mouth of the Lycus to that of the harbour, this arm of the Bosphorus is more than seven miles in length. The entrance is about five hundred yards broad, and a strong chain could be occasionally drawn across it, to guard the port and city from the attack of an hostile navy."

fables, of antiquity.c A crowd of temples and of | Bosphorus, obtained in a very remote period, the votive altars profusely scattered along its steep and woody banks, attested the unskilfulness, the terrors, and the devotion of the Grecian navigators, who, after the example of the Argonauts, explored the dangers of the inhospitable Euxine. On these banks tradition long preserved the memory of the palace of Phineus, infested by the obscene harpies; and of the sylvan reign of Amycus, who defied the son of Leda to the combat of the cestus. The straits of the Bosphorus are terminated by the Cyanean rocks, which, according to the description of the poets, had once floated on the face of the waters; and were destined by the gods to protect the entrance of the Euxine against the eye of profane curiosity.' From the Cyanean rocks to the point and harbour of Byzantium, the winding length of the Bosphorus extends about sixteen miles, and its most ordinary breadth may be computed at about one mile and a half. The new castles of Europe and Asia are constructed, on either continent, upon the foundations of two celebrated temples, of Serapis and of Jupiter Urius. The old castles, a work of the Greek emperors, command the narrowest part of the channel, in a place where the opposite banks advance within five hundred paces of each other. These fortresses were destroyed and strengthened by Mahomet the second, when he meditated the siege of Constantinople: " but the Turkish conqueror was most probably ignorant, that near two thousand years before his reign, Darius had chosen the same situation to connect the two continents by a bridge of boats. At a small distance from the old castles we discover the little town of Chrysopolis, or Scutari, which may almost be considered as the Asiatic suburb of Constantinople. The Bosphorus, as it begins to open into the Propontis, passes between Byzantium and Chalcedon. The latter of those cities was built by the Greeks, a few years before the former; and the blindness of its founders, who overlooked the superior advantages of the opposite coast, has been stigmatized by a proverbial expression of contempt.

The port.

h

The harbour of Constantinople, which may be considered as an arm of the

e The Bosphorus has been very minutely described by Dionysius of Byzantium, who lived in the time of Domitian. (Hudson Geograph. Minor. tom. i.) and by Gilles or Gyllius, a French traveller of the xvith century. Tournefort (Lettre XV.) seems to have used his own eyes, and the learning of Gyllius.

There are very few conjectures so happy as that of Le Clerc, (Bibliotheque Universelle, tom. i. p. 148.) who supposes that the harpies were only locusts. The Syriac or Phoenician name of those insects, their noisy flight, the steuch and devastation which they occasion, and the north wind which drives them into the sea, all contribute to form the striking resemblance.

e The residence of Amycus was in Asia, between the old and the new castles, at a place called Laurus Insana. That of Phineus was in Eu rope, near the village of Mauromole and the Black Sea. See Gyllius de Bosph. 1. ii. c. 23. Tournefort, Lettre xv.

f The deception was occasioned by several pointed rocks, alternately covered and abandoned by the waves. At present there are two small islands, one towards either shore; that of Europe is distinguished by the column of Pompey.

g The ancients computed one hundred and twenty stadia, or fifteen Roman miles. They measured only from the new castles, but they carried the straits as far as the town of Chalcedon.

h Ducas. Hist. c. 34. Leunclavius Hist. Turcia Musulmanica, 1. xv. p. 577. Under the Greek empire these castles were used as state prisons, under the tremendous name of Lethe, or towers of oblivion.

↑ Darius engraved in Greek and Assyrian letters, on two marble columns, the names of his subject nations, and the amazing numbers of

Between the Bosphorus and the The Propontis. Hellespont, the shores of Europe and

Asia receding on either side enclose the sea of Marmara, which was known to the ancients by the denomination of Propontis. The navigation from the issue of the Bosphorus to the entrance of the Hellespont is about one hundred and twenty miles. Those who steer their westward course through the middle of the Propontis, may at once descry the high lands of Thrace and Bithynia, and never lose sight of the lofty summit of Mount Olympus, covered with eternal snows. They leave on the left a deep gulf, at the bottom of which Nicomedia was seated, the imperial residence of Diocletian; and they pass the small islands of Cyzicus and Proconnesus before they cast anchor at Gallipoli; where the sea, which separates Asia from Europe, is again contracted into a narrow channel.

The geographers who with the most skilful accuracy have surveyed the

The Hellespont.

his land and sea forces. The Byzantines afterwards transported these columns into the city, and used them for the altars of their tutelar deities. Herodotus, l. iv. c. 87.

k Namque artissimo inter Europam Asiamque divortio Byzantium in extrema Europâ posuêre Græci, quibus, Pythium Apollinem consulentibus ubi conderent urbem, redditum oraculum est, quærerent sedem cæcorum terris adversam. Ea ambage Chalcedonii monstrabantur, quod priores illuc advecti, prævisà locorum utilitate pejora legissent. Tacit. Annal. xii. 62.

1 Strabo, I. x. p. 492. Most of the antlers are now broke off; or, to speak less figuratively, most of the recesses of the harbour are filled up. See Gill. de Bosphoro Thracio, l. i. c. 5.

m Procopius de Edificiis, I. i. c. 5. His description is confirmed by modern travellers. See Thevenot, part. i. I. i. c. 15. Tournefort, Lettre xii. Niebuhr, Voyage d'Arabie, p. 22.

n See Ducange, C. P. I. i. part. i. c. 16. and his Observations sur Villehardouin, p. 289. The chain was drawn from the Acropolis near the modern Kiosk, to the tower of Galata; and was supported at convenient distances by large wooden piles.

Thevenot (Voyages au Levant, part. i. I. i. c. 14.) contracts the measure to 125 small Greek miles. Belon (Observations, 1. ii. c. 1.) gives a good description of the Propontis, but contents himself with the vague expression of one day and one night's sail. When Sandys (Travels, p. 21.) talks of 150 furlongs in length, as well as breadth, we can only suppose some mistake of the press in the text of that judi. cious traveller.