VII. We cannot forbear transcribing the ingenious, though CHAP. somewhat fanciful description, which a celebrated writer of our own times has traced of the military govern- Form of a ment of the Roman empire: "What in that age was military "called the Roman empire, was only an irregular re- republic. "public, not unlike the Aristocracy of Algiers, "where the militia, possessed of the sovereignty, "creates and deposes a magistrate, who is styled a "Dey. Perhaps, indeed, it may be laid down as a "general rule, that a military government is, in some "respects, more republican than monarchical. Nor can it be said that the soldiers only partook of the 66 government by their disobedience and rebellions. "The speeches made to them by the emperors, were "they not at length of the same nature as those for"merly pronounced to the people by the consuls and "the tribunes? And although the armies had no re"gular place or forms of assembly; though their de"bates were short, their action sudden, and their re solves seldom the result of cool reflection, did they "not dispose, with absolute sway, of the public for"tune? What was the emperor, except the minister "of a violent government elected for the private be"nefit of the soldiers? "When the army had elected Philip, who was Pretorian Præfect to the third Gordian; the latter de"manded that he might remain sole emperor; he was "unable to obtain it. He requested, that the power "might be equally divided between them; the army "would not listen to his speech. He consented to be "degraded to the rank of Cæsar; the favour was re"fused him. He desired, at least, he might be ap"pointed Prætorian præfect; his prayer was rejected. "Finally, he pleaded for his life. The army, in these "several judgments, exercised the supreme magis cellinus, xxiii. 5. Zosimus, 1.i. p. 19. Philip, who was a native of Bostra, was about forty years of age. 53 Can the epithet of Aristocracy be applied, with any propriety, to the government of Algiers? Every military government floats between the extremes of absolute monarchy and wild democracy. 34 The military republic of the Mamalukes in Egypt, would have afforded M. de Montesquieu (see Considerations sur la Grandeur et la Decadence des Romains, c. 16.) a juster and more noble parallel. CHAP. "tracy." According to the historian, whose doubtful VII. narrative the president De Montesquieu has adopted, Reign of Secular games. Philip, who, during the whole transaction, had preserved a sullen silence, was inclined to spare the innocent life of his benefactor; till, recollecting that his innocence might excite a dangerous compassion in the Roman world; he commanded, witbout regard to his suppliant cries, that he should be seized, stript, and led away to instant death. After a moment's pause, the inhuman sentence was executed55. On his return from the East to Rome, Philip, desirous of obliterating the memory of his crimes, and of captivating the affections of the people, solemnized the secular games with infinite pomp and magnificence. Since their institution or revival by Augustus56, they had been celebrated by Claudius, by Domitian, and by Severus, and were now renewed the fifth time, on the accomplishment of the full period of a thousand years from the foundation of Rome. Every circumstance of the secular games was skilfully adapted to April 21. inspire the superstitious mind with deep and solemn reverence. The long interval between them exceeded the term of human life; and as none of the spectators had already seen them, none could flatter themselves with the expectation of beholding them a second time. The mystic sacrifices were performed, during three nights, on the banks of the Tyber; and the Campus Martius resounded with music and dances, and A. D. 248. 55 The Augustan History (p. 163, 164.) cannot, in this instance, be reconciled with itself or with probability. How could Philip condemn his predecessor and yet consecrate his memory? how could he order his public execution, and yet, in his letters to the senate, exculpate himself from the guilt of his death? Philip, though an ambitious usurper, was by no means a mad tyrant. Some chronological difficulties have likewise been discovered by the nice eyes of Tillemont and Muratori, in this supposed association of Philip to the empire. 56 The account of the last supposed celebration, though in an enlightened period of history, was so very doubtful and obscure, that the alternative seems not doubtful. When the popish jubilees, the copy of the secular games, were invented by Boniface VIII the crafty pope pretended, that he only revived an ancient institution. See M. Le Chais, Lettres sur les Jubilés. 57 Either of a hundred, or a hundred and ten years. Varro and Livy adopted the former opinion, but the infallible authority of the Sibyl consecrated the latter. (Censorinus de Die Natal. c. 17.) The emperors Claudius and Philip, however, did not treat the oracle with implicit respect. was illuminated with innumerable lamps and torches. CHAP. Slaves and strangers were excluded from any participation in these national ceremonies. A chorus of twenty-seven youths, and as many virgins, of noble families, and whose parents were both alive, implored the propitious gods in favour of the present, and for the hope of the rising generation; requesting, in reli gious hymns, that, according to the faith of their ancient oracles, they would still maintain the virtue, the felicity, and the empire of the Roman peoples. The magnificence of Philip's shows and entertainments dazzled the eyes of the multitude. The devout were employed in the rites of superstition, whilst the reflecting few revolved in their anxious minds the past history and the future fate of the empire. man em Since Romulus, with a small band of shepherds Decline of and outlaws, fortified himself on the hills near the the RoTyber, ten centuries had already elapsed". During pire. the four first ages, the Romans, in the laborious school of poverty, had acquired the virtues of war and government: by the vigorous exertion of those virtues, and by the assistance of fortune, they had obtained, in the course of the three succeeding centuries, an absolute empire over many countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The last three hundred years had been consumed in apparent prosperity and internal decline. The nation of soldiers, magistrates, and legislators, who composed the thirty-five tribes of the Roman people, was dissolved into the common mass of mankind, and confounded with the millions of servile provinoials, who had received the name, without adopting the spirit of Romans. A mercenary army, levied among the subjects and barbarians of the frontier, was the only order of men who preserved and abused their independence. By their tumultuary election, a Syrian, a Goth, or an Arab, was exalted to the throne of 58 The idea of the secular games is best understood from the poem of Horace, and the description of Zosimus, 1. ii. p. 167, &c. 59 The received calculation of Varro assigns to the foundation of Rome, an æra that corresponds with the 754th year before Christ. But so little is the chronology of Rome to be depended on, in the more early ages, that Sir Isaac Newton has brought the same event as low as the year 627. VOL. I. Ff CHAP. Rome, and invested with despotic power over the conquests and over the country of the Scipios. VII. The limits of the Roman empire still extended from the Western Ocean to the Tigris, and from Mount Atlas to the Rhine and the Danube. To the undiscerning eye of the vulgar, Philip appeared a monarch no less powerful than Hadrian or Augustus had formerly been. The form was still the same, but the animating health and vigour were fled. The industry of the people was discouraged and exhausted by a long series of oppression. The discipline of the legions, which alone, after the extinction of every other virtue, had propped the greatness of the state, was corrupted by the ambition, or relaxed by the weak ness, of the emperors. The strength of the frontiers, which had always consisted in arms rather than in fortifications, was insensibly undermined; and the fairest provinces were left exposed to the rapaciousness or ambition of the barbarians, who soon discover ed the decline of the Roman empire. CHAPTER VIII. Of the State of Persia after the Restoration of the The bar and of the WHENEVER Tacitus indulges himself in those CHAP. beautiful episodes, in which he relates some domestic transaction of the Germans or of the Parthians, his principal object is to relieve the attention of the reader barians of from a uniform scene of vice and misery. From the the East reign of Augustus to the time of Alexander Severus, North, the enemies of Rome were in her bosom; the tyrants, and the soldiers; and her prosperity had a very distant and feeble interest in the revolutions that might happen beyond the Rhine and the Euphrates. But when the military order had levelled, in wild anarchy, the power of the prince, the laws of the senate, and even the discipline of the camp, the barbarians of the north and of the east, who had long hovered on the frontier, boldly attacked the provinces of a declining monarchy. Their vexatious inroads were changed into formidable irruptions, and, after a long vicissitude of mutual calamities, many tribes of the victorious invaders established themselves in the provinces of the Roman empire. To obtain a clearer knowledge of these great events, we shall endeavour to form a previous idea of the character, forces, and designs of those nations who avenged the cause of Hannibal and Mithridates. Asia. In the more early ages of the world, whilst the fo- Revolurest that covered Europe afforded a retreat to a few tions of wandering savages, the inhabitants of Asia were already collected into populous cities, and reduced under extensive empires, the seat of the arts, of luxury, and of despotism. The Assyrians reigned over the east', till the sceptre of Ninus and Semiramis dropt 1 An ancient chronologist quoted by Velleius Paterculus (1. i. c. 6.) observes that the Assyrians, the Medes, the Persians, and the Macedonians, reigned over Asia one thousand nine hundred and ninety-five years, from the accession of Ninus to the defeat of Antiochus by the Romans. As the latter of these great events happened 289 years before Christ, the former may be placed 2184 years before the same æra. The Astronomical Obser vations, found at Babylon by Alexander, went fifty years higher. |