74 CONDUCT OF THE EMPERORS. CHAP. XIII. of arms, from the new arsenals which he had formed at Antioch, Emesa, and Damascus. 32 Nor was the precaution of the emperor less watchful against the well-known valour of the barbarians of Europe. From the mouth of the Rhine to that of the Danube, the ancient camps, towns, and citadels, were diligently re-established, and, in the most exposed places, new ones were skilfully constructed; the strictest vigilance was introduced among the garrisons of the frontier, and every expedient was practised that could render the long chain of fortifications firm and impenetrable.33 A barrier so respectable was Dissensions seldom violated, and the barbarians often turned against barbarians. each other their disappointed rage. The Goths, the Vandals, the Gepida, the Burgundians, the Alemanni, wasted each other's strength by destructive hostilities: and whosoever vanquished, they vanquished the enemies of Rome. The subjects of Diocletian enjoyed the bloody spectacle, and congratulated each other that the mischiefs of civil war were now experienced only by the barbarians.34 Notwithstanding the policy of Diocletian, it was impossible to of the Conduct of the maintain an equal and undisturbed tranquillity during a emperors. reign of twenty years, and along a frontier of many hundred miles. Sometimes the barbarians suspended their domestic animosities, and the relaxed vigilance of the garrisons sometimes gave a passage to their strength or dexterity. Whenever the provinces were invaded, Diocletian conducted himself with that calm dignity which he always affected or possessed; reserved his presence for such occasions as were worthy of his interposition, never exposed his person or reputation to any unnecessary danger, ensured his success by every means that prudence could suggest, and displayed, with ostentation, the consequences of his victory. In wars of a more difficult nature, and more doubtful event, he employed the rough valour of Maximian; and that faithful soldier was content to ascribe his own victories to the wise counsels and auspicious influence of his benefactor. But after the adoption of the two Cæsars, the emperors, themselves retiring the Cæsars. to a less laborious scene of action, devolved on their adopted sons the defence of the Danube and of the Rhine. The vigilant Galerius was never reduced to the necessity of vanquishing an army of barbarians on the Roman territory.35 The brave and active 32 John Malala, in Chron. Antiochen. tom. i. p. 408, 409 [ed. Oxon.; p. 132, ed. Ven.; p. 308, ed. Bonn]. Valour of 33 Zosim. 1. i. p. 3 [1. ii. c. 34]. That partial historian seems to celebrate the vigilance of Diocletian, with a design of exposing the negligence of Constantine; we may, however, listen to an orator: "Nam quid ego alarum et cohortium castra percenseam, toto Rheni et Istri et Euphratis limite restituta." Panegyr. Vet. iv. 18. 34 Ruunt omnes in sanguinem suum populi, quibus non contigit esse Romanis, obstinatæque feritatis poenas nunc sponte persolvunt. Panegyr. Vet. iii. 16. Mamertinus illustrates the fact by the example of almost all the nations of the world. 35 He complained, though not with the strictest truth, "Jam fluxisse annos quin of the bar Constantius delivered Gaul from a very furious inroad of the Alemanni; and his victories of Langres and Vindonissa appear to have been actions of considerable danger and merit. As he traversed the open country with a feeble guard, he was encompassed on a sudden by the superior multitude of the enemy. He retreated with difficulty towards Langres; but, in the general consternation, the citizens refused to open their gates, and the wounded prince was drawn up the wall by the means of a rope. But, on the news of his distress, the Roman troops hastened from all sides to his relief, and before the evening he had satisfied his honour and revenge by the slaughter of six thousand Alemanni,36 From the monuments of those times the obscure traces of several other victories over the barbarians of Sarmatia and Germany might possibly be collected; but the tedious search would not be rewarded either with amusement or with instruction. The conduct which the emperor Probus had adopted in the disposal of the vanquished was imitated by Diocletian and his Treatment associates. The captive barbarians, exchanging death for barians. slavery, were distributed among the provincials, and assigned to those districts (in Gaul, the territories of Amiens, Beauvais, Cambray, Treves, Langres, and Troyes, are particularly specified) 37 which had been depopulated by the calamities of war. They were usefully employed as shepherds and husbandmen, but were denied the exercise of arms, except when it was found expedient to enrol them in the military service. Nor did the emperors refuse the property of lands, with a less servile tenure, to such of the barbarians as solicited the protection of Rome. They granted a settlement to several colonies of the Carpi, the Bastarnæ, and the Sarmatians; and, by a dangerous indulgence, permitted them in some measure to retain their national manners and independence.38 Among the provincials it was a subject of flattering exultation, that the barbarian, so lately an object of terror, now cultivated their lands, drove their cattle to the neighbouring fair, and contributed by his labour to the public plenty. They congratulated their masters on the powerful accession of subjects and decim in quibus, in Illyrico, ad ripam Danubii relegatus cum gentibus barbaris luctaret." Lactant. de M. P. c. 18. 36 In the Greek text of Eusebius weread six thousand, a number which I have preferred to the sixty thousand of Jerome, Orosius, Eutropius, and his Greek translator Pæanius. 37 Panegyr. Vet. vii. 21. 38 There was a settlement of the Sarmatians in the neighbourhood of Treves, which seems to have been deserted by those lazy barbarians; Ausonius speaks of them in his Mosella [v. 5, segg.]: Unde iter ingrediens nemorosa per avia solum, Et nulla humani spectans vestigia cultus; Arvaque Sauromatûm nuper metata colonis. There was a town of the Carpi in the Lower Mæsia. 76 WARS OF AFRICA AND EGYPT. СНАР. ХІІІ. soldiers; but they forgot to observe that multitudes of secret enemies, insolent from favour, or desperate from oppression, were introduced into the heart of the empire.39 Wars of 41 40 While the Cæsars exercised their valour on the banks of the Rhine and Danube, the presence of the emperors was required on Egypt. the southern confines of the Roman world. From the Nile to Mount Atlas, Africa was in arms. A confederacy of five Moorish nations issued from their deserts to invade the peaceful provinces. 4o Julian had assumed the purple at Carthage. Achilleus at Alexandria, and even the Blemmyes, renewed, or rather continued, their incursions into the Upper Egypt. Scarcely any circumstances have been preserved of the exploits of Maximian in the western parts of Africa; but it appears, by the event, that the progress of his arms was rapid and decisive, that he vanquished the fiercest barbarians of Mauritania, and that he removed them from the mountains, whose inaccessible strength had inspired their inhabitants with a lawless A.D. 296. confidence, and habituated them to a life of rapine and violence.12 Diocletian, on his side, opened the campaign in Egypt by the siege of Alexandria, cut off the aqueducts which conveyed the waters of the Nile into every quarter of that immense city,43 and, rendering his camp impregnable to the sallies of the besieged multitude, he pushed his reiterated attacks with caution and vigour. After a siege of eight months, Alexandria, wasted by the sword and by fire, implored the clemency of the conqueror, but it experienced the full extent of his severity. Many thousands of the citizens perished in a promiscuous slaughter, and there were few obnoxious persons in Egypt who escaped a sentence either of death or at least of exile. 44 The fate of Busiris and of Coptos was still more melancholy than that of Alexandria; those proud cities, the former distinguished by its antiquity, the latter enriched by the passage of the Indian trade, were utterly destroyed by the arms and by the severe order of Diocletian.45 The character of the Egyptian 39 See the rhetorical exultation of Eumenius. Panegyr. vii. 9. 40 Scaliger (Animadvers. ad Euseb. p. 243) decides, in his usual manner, that the Quinquegentiani, or five African nations, were the five great cities, the Pentapolis of the inoffensive province of Cyrene. 41 After his defeat Julian stabbed himself with a dagger, and immediately leaped into the flames. Victor in Epitome [c. 39]. 42 Tu ferocissimos Mauritaniæ populos inaccessis montium jugis et naturali munitione fidentes, expugnasti, recepisti, transtulisti. Panegyr. Vet. vi. 8. 43 See the description of Alexandria in Hirtius de Bell. Alexandrin. c. 5. 44 Eutrop. ix. 24 [15]. Orosius, vii. 25. John Malala in Chron. Antioch. p. 409, 410 [ed. Oxon.; p. 132, ed. Ven.; p. 309, ed. Bonn]. Yet Eumenius assures us that Egypt was pacified by the clemency of Diocletian. 45 Eusebius (in Chron. [An. CCXCIII.]) places their destruction several years sooner, and at a time when Egypt itself was in a state of rebellion against the Romans. More probably A.D. 297. See Clinton, Fasti Rom. vol. i. p. 338.-S. nation, insensible to kindness, but extremely susceptible of fear, could alone justify this excessive rigour. The seditions of Alexandria had often affected the tranquillity and subsistence of Rome itself. Since the usurpation of Firmus, the province of Upper Egypt, incessantly relapsing into rebellion, had embraced the alliance of the savages of Ethiopia. The number of the Blemmyes, scattered between the island of Meroe and the Red Sea, was very inconsiderable, their disposition was unwarlike, their weapons rude and inoffensive.46 Yet in the public disorders these barbarians, whom antiquity, shocked with the deformity of their figure, had almost excluded from the human species, presumed to rank themselves among the enemies of Rome.47 Such had been the unworthy allies of the Egyptians; and while the attention of the state was engaged in more serious wars, their vexatious inroads might again harass the repose of the province. With a view of opposing to the Blemmyes a suitable adversary, Diocletian persuaded the Nobatæ, or people of Nubia, to remove from their ancient habitations in the deserts of Libya, and resigned to them an extensive but unprofitable territory above Syene and the cataracts of the Nile, with the stipulation that they should ever respect and guard the frontier of the empire. The treaty long subsisted; and till the establishment of Christianity introduced stricter notions of religious worship, it was annually ratified by a solemn sacrifice in the isle of Elephantine, in which the Romans, as well as the barbarians, adored the same visible or invisible powers of the universe. 48 At the same time that Diocletian chastised the past crimes of the Egyptians, he provided for their future safety and happiness by many wise regulations, which were confirmed and enforced under the succeeding reigns. 19 One very remarkable edict which he published, instead of being condemned as the effect of jealous tyranny, deserves to be applauded as an act of prudence and humanity. He caused a diligent inquiry to be made "for all the ancient books which "treated of the admirable art of making gold and silver, presses "and without pity committed them to the flames; appre- alchymy. He sup 46 Strabo, 1. xvii. p. 819. Pomponius Mela, 1. i. c. 4. His words are curious: "Intra, si credere libet, vix homines magisque semiferi; Ægipanes, et Blemmyes, et "Satyri." 47 Ausus sese inserere fortunæ et provocare arma Romana. 48 See Procopius de Bell. Persic. 1. i. c. 19. 49 He fixed the public allowance of corn for the people of Alexandria at two millions of medimni; about four hundred thousand quarters. Chron. Paschal. p. 276. Procop. Hist. Arcan. c. 26. a Compare, on the epoch of the final extirpation of the rites of Paganism from the Isle of Philæ (Elephantine), which subsisted till the edict of Theodosius in the sixth century, a dissertation of M. Letronne on certain Greek inscriptions. The disser tation contains some very interesting observations on the conduct and policy of Diocletian in Egypt. Matér. pour l'Hist. du Christianisme en Egypte, Nubie, et Abyssinie, Paris, 1832.-M. 78 66 Novelty and that art. PROGRESS OF ALCHYMY. CHAP. XIII. 9950 “hensive, as we are assured, lest the opulence of the Egyptians should inspire them with confidence to rebel against the empire.' But if Diocletian had been convinced of the reality of that valuable art, far from extinguishing the memory, he would have converted the operation of it to the benefit of the public revenue. It is much more likely that his good sense discovered to him the folly of such magnificent pretensions, and that be was desirous of preserving the reason and fortunes of his subjects from the mischievous pursuit. progress of It may be remarked that these ancient books, so liberally ascribed to Pythagoras, to Solomon, or to Hermes, were the pious frauds of more recent adepts. The Greeks were inattentive either to the use or to the abuse of chymistry. In that immense register, where Pliny has deposited the discoveries, the arts, and the errors of mankind, there is not the least mention of the transmutation of metals; and the persecution of Diocletian is the first authentic event in the history of alchymy. The conquest of Egypt by the Arabs diffused that vain science over the globe. Congenial to the avarice of the human heart, it was studied in China as in Europe, with equal eagerness and with equal success. The darkness of the middle ages ensured a favourable reception to every tale of wonder, and the revival of learning gave new vigour to hope, and suggested more specious arts of deception. Philosophy, with the aid of experience, has at length banished the study of alchymy; and the present age, however desirous of riches, is content to seek them by the humbler means of commerce and industry.51 The Persian war. war. The reduction of Egypt was immediately followed by the Persian It was reserved for the reign of Diocletian to vanquish that powerful nation, and to extort a confession from the successors of Artaxerxes of the superior majesty of the Roman empire. Tiridates the We have observed, under the reign of Valerian, that Armenia was subdued by the perfidy and the arms of the Persians, Armenian. and that, after the assassination of Chosroes, his son Tiridates, the infant heir of the monarchy, was saved by the fidelity of his friends, and educated under the protection of the emperors. Tiridates derived from his exile such advantages as he could never have obtained on the throne of Armenia; the early knowledge of adversity, of mankind, and of the Roman discipline. He signalised his youth by deeds of valour, and displayed a matchless dexterity, as well as strength, in every martial exercise, and even in the less 50 John Antioch. in Excerp. Valesian. p. 834. Suidas in Diocletian. 51 See a short history and confutation of Alchymy, in the works of that philosophical compiler, La Mothe le Vayer, tom. i. p. 327-353. |