CHAP. guards. But the most fatal, though secret XIII. wound, which the senate received from the hands of Diocletian and Maximian, was inflicted by the inevitable operation of their absence. As long as the emperors resided at Rome, that assembly might be oppressed, but it could scarcely be neglected. The successors of Augustus exercised the power of dictating whatever laws their wisdom or caprice might suggest; but those laws were ratified by the sanction of the senate. The model of ancient freedom was preserved in its deliberations and decrees; and wise princes, who respected the prejudices of the Roman people, were, in some measure, obliged to assume the language and behaviour suitable to the general and first magistrate of the republic. In the armies and in the provinces, they displayed the dignity of monarchs; and when they fixed their residence at a distance from the capital, they for ever laid aside the dissimulation which Augustus had recommended to his successors. In the exercise of the legislative as well as the executive power, the sovereign advised with his ministers, instead of consulting the great council of the nation. The name of the senate was mentioned with honour till the last period of the empire; the They were old corps stationed in Illyricum; and, according to the ancient establishment, they each consisted of six thousand men. They had acquired much reputation by the use of the plumbate, or aarts loaded with lead. Each soldier carried five of these, which he darted from a considerable distance, with great strength and dexterity. See Vegetius, i, 17. XIII. vanity of its members was still flattered with CHAP. honorary distinctions; but the assembly which had so long been the source, and so long the instrument, of power, was respectfully suffered to sink into oblivion. The senate of Rome, losing all connection with the imperial court and the actual constitution, was left a venerable, but useless monument of antiquity on the Capitoline hill. gistracies When the Roman princes had lost sight of the Civil ma senate, and of their ancient capital, they easily laid aside. forgot the origin and nature of their legal power. The civil offices of consul, of proconsul, of censor, and of tribune, by the union of which it had been formed, betrayed to the people its republican extraction. Those modest titles were laid aside; and if they still distinguish their high station by the appellation of emperor, or imperator, that word was understood in a new and more dignified sense, and no longer denoted the general of the Roman armies, but the sovereign of the Roman world. The name of em- Imperial peror, which was at first of a military nature, and titles was associated with another of a more servile kind. The epithet of dominus, or lord, in its primitive signification, was expressive, not of the authority of a prince over his subjects, or See the Theodosian Code, vi, tit. ii, with Godefroy's commentary. See the twelfth dissertation in Spanheim's excellent work, de Usu Numismatum. From medals, inscriptions, and historians, he examines everv title separately, and traces it from Augustus to the moment of its disappearing. dignity XIII. CHAP. of a commander over his soldiers, but of the despotic power of a master over his domestic slaves. Viewing it in that odious light, it had been rejected with abhorrence by the first Cæsars. Their resistance insensibly became more feeble, and the name less odious; till at length the style of our lord and emperor was not only bestowed by flattery, but was regularly admitted into the laws and public monuments. Such lofty epithets were sufficient to elate and satisfy the most excessive vanity; and if the successors of Diocletian still decline the title of king, it seems to have been the effect, not so much of their moderation, as of their delicacy. Wherever the Latin tongue was in use (and it was the language of government throughout the empire), the imperial title, as it was peculiar to themselves, conveyed a more respectable idea than the name of king, which they must have shared with an hundred barbarian chieftains; or which, at the best, they could derive only from Romulus or from Tarquin. But the sentiments of the East were very different from those of the West. From the earliest period of history, the sovereigns of Asia had been celebrated in the Greek language by the title of basileus, or king; and since it was considered as the first distinction Pliny (in Panegyr. c. 3, 55, &c.) speaks of dominue with execration, as synonymous to tyrant, and opposite to prince. And the same Pliny regularly gives that title (in the tenth book of the epistles) to his friend rather than master, the virtuous Trajan. This strange contradiction puzzles the commentators, who think, and the translators, who can write. XIII. among men, it was soon employed by the servile CHAP. provincials of the East, in their humble addresses to the Roman throne. Even the attributes, or at least the titles, of the divinity were usurped by Diocletian and Maximian, who transmitted them to a succession of christian emperors." Such extravagant compliments, however, soon lose their impiety by losing their meaning; and when the ear is once accustomed to the sound, they are heard with indifference, as vague. though excessive, professions of respect. assumes dem, and the Persi an ceremo From the time of Augustus to that of Diocle- Diocletian tian, the Roman princes, conversing in a familiar the diamanner among their fellow-citizens, were saluted introduces only with the same respect that was usually paid to senators and magistrates. Their principal nial. distinction was the imperiál military robe of purple; whilst the senatorial garment was marked by a broad, and the equestrian by a narrow, band or stripe of the same honourable colour. The pride, or rather the policy, of Diocletian, engaged that artful prince to introduce the stately magnificence of the court of Persia. He ventured to assume the diadem, an ornament detested by the Romans as the odious ensign of roy alty, and the use of which had been considered B Synesius de Regno, Edit. Petav. p. 15. I am indebted for this quotation to the Abbé de la Bleterie. 1 See Vendale de Consecratione, p. 354, &c. It was customary for the emperors to mention (in the preamble of laws) their numen, sacred majesty, divine oracles, &c According to Tillemont, Gregory of Nazianzen complains most bitterly of the profanation, especially when it was practised by an Arian emperor. See Spanheim de Usu Numismat. Dissertat. xii. CHAP. as the most desperate act of the madness of CaXIII. ligula. It was no more than a broad white fillet set with pearls, which encircled the empe ror's head. The sumptuous robes of Diocletian and his successors were of silk and gold; and it is remarked with indignation, that even their shoes were studded with the most precious gems. The access to their sacred person was every day rendered more difficult, by the institution of new forms and ceremonies. The avenues of the palace were strictly guarded by the various schools, as they began to be called, of domestic officers. The interior apartments were intrusted to the jealous vigilance of the eunuchs; the increase of whose numbers and influence was the most infallible symptom of the progress of despotism. When a subject was at length admitted to the imperial presence, he was obliged, whatever might be his rank, to fall prostrate on the ground, and to adore, according to the eastern fashion, the divinity of his lord and master.* Diocletian was a man of sense, who, in the course of private as well as public life, had formed a just estimate both of himself and of mankind; nor is it easy to conceive, that in substituting the manners of Persia to those of Rome, he was seriously actuated by so mean a principle as that of vanity. He flattered himself, that an ostentation of splendour and luxury would subdue the imagination of the multitude; that the * Aurelius Victor. Eutropius, ix. 26. It appears by the panegyrists, that the Romans were soon reconciled to the name and ceremo ny of adoration. |