Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.—Part V

If we extend our view from the tropic to the mouth of the Tanais,
we may observe, on one hand, the precautions of Justinian to curb
the savages of Aethiopia, 125 and on the other, the long walls
which he constructed in Crimaea for the protection of his
friendly Goths, a colony of three thousand shepherds and
warriors. 126 From that peninsula to Trebizond, the eastern curve
of the Euxine was secured by forts, by alliance, or by religion;
and the possession of Lazica, the Colchos of ancient, the
Mingrelia of modern, geography, soon became the object of an
important war. Trebizond, in after-times the seat of a romantic
empire, was indebted to the liberality of Justinian for a church,
an aqueduct, and a castle, whose ditches are hewn in the solid
rock. From that maritime city, frontier line of five hundred
miles may be drawn to the fortress of Circesium, the last Roman
station on the Euphrates. 127 Above Trebizond immediately, and
five days’ journey to the south, the country rises into dark
forests and craggy mountains, as savage though not so lofty as
the Alps and the Pyrenees. In this rigorous climate, 128 where
the snows seldom melt, the fruits are tardy and tasteless, even
honey is poisonous: the most industrious tillage would be
confined to some pleasant valleys; and the pastoral tribes
obtained a scanty sustenance from the flesh and milk of their
cattle. The Chalybians 129 derived their name and temper from the
iron quality of the soil; and, since the days of Cyrus, they
might produce, under the various appellations of Chaldæans and
Zanians, an uninterrupted prescription of war and rapine. Under
the reign of Justinian, they acknowledged the god and the emperor
of the Romans, and seven fortresses were built in the most
accessible passages, to exclude the ambition of the Persian
monarch. 130 The principal source of the Euphrates descends from
the Chalybian mountains, and seems to flow towards the west and
the Euxine: bending to the south-west, the river passes under the
walls of Satala and Melitene (which were restored by Justinian as
the bulwarks of the Lesser Armenia,) and gradually approaches the
Mediterranean Sea; till at length, repelled by Mount Taurus, 131
the Euphrates inclines its long and flexible course to the
south-east and the Gulf of Persia. Among the Roman cities beyond
the Euphrates, we distinguish two recent foundations, which were
named from Theodosius, and the relics of the martyrs; and two
capitals, Amida and Edessa, which are celebrated in the history
of every age. Their strength was proportioned by Justinian to the
danger of their situation. A ditch and palisade might be
sufficient to resist the artless force of the cavalry of Scythia;
but more elaborate works were required to sustain a regular siege
against the arms and treasures of the great king. His skilful
engineers understood the methods of conducting deep mines, and of
raising platforms to the level of the rampart: he shook the
strongest battlements with his military engines, and sometimes
advanced to the assault with a line of movable turrets on the
backs of elephants. In the great cities of the East, the
disadvantage of space, perhaps of position, was compensated by
the zeal of the people, who seconded the garrison in the defence
of their country and religion; and the fabulous promise of the
Son of God, that Edessa should never be taken, filled the
citizens with valiant confidence, and chilled the besiegers with
doubt and dismay. 132 The subordinate towns of Armenia and
Mesopotamia were diligently strengthened, and the posts which
appeared to have any command of ground or water were occupied by
numerous forts, substantially built of stone, or more hastily
erected with the obvious materials of earth and brick. The eye of
Justinian investigated every spot; and his cruel precautions
might attract the war into some lonely vale, whose peaceful
natives, connected by trade and marriage, were ignorant of
national discord and the quarrels of princes. Westward of the
Euphrates, a sandy desert extends above six hundred miles to the
Red Sea. Nature had interposed a vacant solitude between the
ambition of two rival empires; the Arabians, till Mahomet arose,
were formidable only as robbers; and in the proud security of
peace the fortifications of Syria were neglected on the most
vulnerable side.

125 (return) [ See Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 19. The altar of
national concern, of annual sacrifice and oaths, which Diocletian
had created in the Isla of Elephantine, was demolished by
Justinian with less policy than]

126 (return) [ Procopius de Edificiis, l. iii. c. 7. Hist. l.
viii. c. 3, 4. These unambitious Goths had refused to follow the
standard of Theodoric. As late as the xvth and xvith century, the
name and nation might be discovered between Caffa and the Straits
of Azoph, (D’Anville, Memoires de l’academie, tom. xxx. p. 240.)
They well deserved the curiosity of Busbequius, (p. 321-326;) but
seem to have vanished in the more recent account of the Missions
du Levant, (tom. i.,) Tott, Peysonnnel, &c.]

127 (return) [ For the geography and architecture of this
Armenian border, see the Persian Wars and Edifices (l. ii. c.
4-7, l. iii. c. 2—7) of Procopius.]

128 (return) [ The country is described by Tournefort, (Voyage au
Levant, tom. iii. lettre xvii. xviii.) That skilful botanist soon
discovered the plant that infects the honey, (Plin. xxi. 44, 45:)
he observes, that the soldiers of Lucullus might indeed be
astonished at the cold, since, even in the plain of Erzerum, snow
sometimes falls in June, and the harvest is seldom finished
before September. The hills of Armenia are below the fortieth
degree of latitude; but in the mountainous country which I
inhabit, it is well known that an ascent of some hours carries
the traveller from the climate of Languedoc to that of Norway;
and a general theory has been introduced, that, under the line,
an elevation of 2400 toises is equivalent to the cold of the
polar circle, (Remond, Observations sur les Voyages de Coxe dans
la Suisse, tom. ii. p. 104.)]

129 (return) [ The identity or proximity of the Chalybians, or
Chaldaeana may be investigated in Strabo, (l. xii. p. 825, 826,)
Cellarius, (Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 202—204,) and Freret,
(Mem. de Academie, tom. iv. p. 594) Xenophon supposes, in his
romance, (Cyropaed l. iii.,) the same Barbarians, against whom he
had fought in his retreat, (Anabasis, l. iv.)]

130 (return) [ Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 15. De Edific. l. iii.
c. 6.]

131 (return) [ Ni Taurus obstet in nostra maria venturus,
(Pomponius Mela, iii. 8.) Pliny, a poet as well as a naturalist,
(v. 20,) personifies the river and mountain, and describes their
combat. See the course of the Tigris and Euphrates in the
excellent treatise of D’Anville.]

132 (return) [ Procopius (Persic. l. ii. c. 12) tells the story
with the tone, half sceptical, half superstitious, of Herodotus.
The promise was not in the primitive lie of Eusebius, but dates
at least from the year 400; and a third lie, the Veronica, was
soon raised on the two former, (Evagrius, l. iv. c. 27.) As
Edessa has been taken, Tillemont must disclaim the promise, (Mem.
Eccles. tom. i. p. 362, 383, 617.)]

But the national enmity, at least the effects of that enmity, had
been suspended by a truce, which continued above fourscore years.
An ambassador from the emperor Zeno accompanied the rash and
unfortunate Perozes, 1321 in his expedition against the
Nepthalites, 1322 or white Huns, whose conquests had been
stretched from the Caspian to the heart of India, whose throne
was enriched with emeralds, 133 and whose cavalry was supported
by a line of two thousand elephants. 134 The Persians 1341 were
twice circumvented, in a situation which made valor useless and
flight impossible; and the double victory of the Huns was
achieved by military stratagem. They dismissed their royal
captive after he had submitted to adore the majesty of a
Barbarian; and the humiliation was poorly evaded by the
casuistical subtlety of the Magi, who instructed Perozes to
direct his attention to the rising sun. 1342 The indignant
successor of Cyrus forgot his danger and his gratitude; he
renewed the attack with headstrong fury, and lost both his army
and his life. 135 The death of Perozes abandoned Persia to her
foreign and domestic enemies; 1351 and twelve years of confusion
elapsed before his son Cabades, or Kobad, could embrace any
designs of ambition or revenge. The unkind parsimony of
Anastasius was the motive or pretence of a Roman war; 136 the
Huns and Arabs marched under the Persian standard, and the
fortifications of Armenia and Mesopotamia were, at that time, in
a ruinous or imperfect condition. The emperor returned his thanks
to the governor and people of Martyropolis for the prompt
surrender of a city which could not be successfully defended, and
the conflagration of Theodosiopolis might justify the conduct of
their prudent neighbors. Amida sustained a long and destructive
siege: at the end of three months the loss of fifty thousand of
the soldiers of Cabades was not balanced by any prospect of
success, and it was in vain that the Magi deduced a flattering
prediction from the indecency of the women 1361 on the ramparts,
who had revealed their most secret charms to the eyes of the
assailants. At length, in a silent night, they ascended the most
accessible tower, which was guarded only by some monks,
oppressed, after the duties of a festival, with sleep and wine.
Scaling-ladders were applied at the dawn of day; the presence of
Cabades, his stern command, and his drawn sword, compelled the
Persians to vanquish; and before it was sheathed, fourscore
thousand of the inhabitants had expiated the blood of their
companions. After the siege of Amida, the war continued three
years, and the unhappy frontier tasted the full measure of its
calamities. The gold of Anastasius was offered too late, the
number of his troops was defeated by the number of their
generals; the country was stripped of its inhabitants, and both
the living and the dead were abandoned to the wild beasts of the
desert. The resistance of Edessa, and the deficiency of spoil,
inclined the mind of Cabades to peace: he sold his conquests for
an exorbitant price; and the same line, though marked with
slaughter and devastation, still separated the two empires. To
avert the repetition of the same evils, Anastasius resolved to
found a new colony, so strong, that it should defy the power of
the Persian, so far advanced towards Assyria, that its stationary
troops might defend the province by the menace or operation of
offensive war. For this purpose, the town of Dara, 137 fourteen
miles from Nisibis, and four days’ journey from the Tigris, was
peopled and adorned; the hasty works of Anastasius were improved
by the perseverance of Justinian; and, without insisting on
places less important, the fortifications of Dara may represent
the military architecture of the age. The city was surrounded
with two walls, and the interval between them, of fifty paces,
afforded a retreat to the cattle of the besieged. The inner wall
was a monument of strength and beauty: it measured sixty feet
from the ground, and the height of the towers was one hundred
feet; the loopholes, from whence an enemy might be annoyed with
missile weapons, were small, but numerous; the soldiers were
planted along the rampart, under the shelter of double galleries,
and a third platform, spacious and secure, was raised on the
summit of the towers. The exterior wall appears to have been less
lofty, but more solid; and each tower was protected by a
quadrangular bulwark. A hard, rocky soil resisted the tools of
the miners, and on the south-east, where the ground was more
tractable, their approach was retarded by a new work, which
advanced in the shape of a half-moon. The double and treble
ditches were filled with a stream of water; and in the management
of the river, the most skilful labor was employed to supply the
inhabitants, to distress the besiegers, and to prevent the
mischiefs of a natural or artificial inundation. Dara continued
more than sixty years to fulfil the wishes of its founders, and
to provoke the jealousy of the Persians, who incessantly
complained, that this impregnable fortress had been constructed
in manifest violation of the treaty of peace between the two
empires. 1371

1321 (return) [ Firouz the Conqueror—unfortunately so named. See
St. Martin, vol. vi. p. 439.—M.]

1322 (return) [ Rather Hepthalites.—M.]

133 (return) [ They were purchased from the merchants of Adulis
who traded to India, (Cosmas, Topograph. Christ. l. xi. p. 339;)
yet, in the estimate of precious stones, the Scythian emerald was
the first, the Bactrian the second, the Aethiopian only the
third, (Hill’s Theophrastus, p. 61, &c., 92.) The production,
mines, &c., of emeralds, are involved in darkness; and it is
doubtful whether we possess any of the twelve sorts known to the
ancients, (Goguet, Origine des Loix, &c., part ii. l. ii. c. 2,
art. 3.) In this war the Huns got, or at least Perozes lost, the
finest pearl in the world, of which Procopius relates a
ridiculous fable.]

134 (return) [ The Indo-Scythae continued to reign from the time
of Augustus (Dionys. Perieget. 1088, with the Commentary of
Eustathius, in Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. iv.) to that of the
elder Justin, (Cosmas, Topograph. Christ. l. xi. p. 338, 339.) On
their origin and conquests, see D’Anville, (sur l’Inde, p. 18,
45, &c., 69, 85, 89.) In the second century they were masters of
Larice or Guzerat.]

1341 (return) [ According to the Persian historians, he was
misled by guides who used he old stratagem of Zopyrus. Malcolm,
vol. i. p. 101.—M.]

1342 (return) [ In the Ms. Chronicle of Tabary, it is said that
the Moubedan Mobed, or Grand Pontiff, opposed with all his
influence the violation of the treaty. St. Martin, vol. vii. p.
254.—M.]

135 (return) [ See the fate of Phirouz, or Perozes, and its
consequences, in Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 3—6,) who may be
compared with the fragments of Oriental history, (D’Herbelot,
Bibliot. Orient. p. 351, and Texeira, History of Persia,
translated or abridged by Stephens, l. i. c. 32, p. 132—138.) The
chronology is ably ascertained by Asseman. (Bibliot. Orient. tom.
iii. p. 396—427.)]

1351 (return) [ When Firoze advanced, Khoosh-Nuaz (the king of
the Huns) presented on the point of a lance the treaty to which
he had sworn, and exhorted him yet to desist before he destroyed
his fame forever. Malcolm, vol. i. p. 103.—M.]

136 (return) [ The Persian war, under the reigns of Anastasius
and Justin, may be collected from Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 7,
8, 9,) Theophanes, (in Chronograph. p. 124—127,) Evagrius, (l.
iii. c. 37,) Marcellinus, (in Chron. p. 47,) and Josue Stylites,
(apud Asseman. tom. i. p. 272—281.)]

1361 (return) [ Gibbon should have written “some prostitutes.”
Proc Pers. vol. 1 p. 7.—M.]

137 (return) [ The description of Dara is amply and correctly
given by Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 10, l. ii. c. 13. De
Edific. l. ii. c. 1, 2, 3, l. iii. c. 5.) See the situation in
D’Anville, (l’Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 53, 54, 55,) though he
seems to double the interval between Dara and Nisibis.]

1371 (return) [ The situation (of Dara) does not appear to give
it strength, as it must have been commanded on three sides by the
mountains, but opening on the south towards the plains of
Mesopotamia. The foundation of the walls and towers, built of
large hewn stone, may be traced across the valley, and over a
number of low rocky hills which branch out from the foot of Mount
Masius. The circumference I conceive to be nearly two miles and a
half; and a small stream, which flows through the middle of the
place, has induced several Koordish and Armenian families to fix
their residence within the ruins. Besides the walls and towers,
the remains of many other buildings attest the former grandeur of
Dara; a considerable part of the space within the walls is arched
and vaulted underneath, and in one place we perceived a large
cavern, supported by four ponderous columns, somewhat resembling
the great cistern of Constantinople. In the centre of the village
are the ruins of a palace (probably that mentioned by Procopius)
or church, one hundred paces in length, and sixty in breadth. The
foundations, which are quite entire, consist of a prodigious
number of subterraneous vaulted chambers, entered by a narrow
passage forty paces in length. The gate is still standing; a
considerable part of the wall has bid defiance to time, &c. M
Donald Kinneir’s Journey, p. 438.—M]

Between the Euxine and the Caspian, the countries of Colchos,
Iberia, and Albania, are intersected in every direction by the
branches of Mount Caucasus; and the two principal gates, or
passes, from north to south, have been frequently confounded in
the geography both of the ancients and moderns. The name of
Caspian or Albanian gates is properly applied to Derbend, 138
which occupies a short declivity between the mountains and the
sea: the city, if we give credit to local tradition, had been
founded by the Greeks; and this dangerous entrance was fortified
by the kings of Persia with a mole, double walls, and doors of
iron. The Iberian gates 139 1391 are formed by a narrow passage
of six miles in Mount Caucasus, which opens from the northern
side of Iberia, or Georgia, into the plain that reaches to the
Tanais and the Volga. A fortress, designed by Alexander perhaps,
or one of his successors, to command that important pass, had
descended by right of conquest or inheritance to a prince of the
Huns, who offered it for a moderate price to the emperor; but
while Anastasius paused, while he timorously computed the cost
and the distance, a more vigilant rival interposed, and Cabades
forcibly occupied the Straits of Caucasus. The Albanian and
Iberian gates excluded the horsemen of Scythia from the shortest
and most practicable roads, and the whole front of the mountains
was covered by the rampart of Gog and Magog, the long wall which
has excited the curiosity of an Arabian caliph 140 and a Russian
conqueror. 141 According to a recent description, huge stones,
seven feet thick, and twenty-one feet in length or height, are
artificially joined without iron or cement, to compose a wall,
which runs above three hundred miles from the shores of Derbend,
over the hills, and through the valleys of Daghestan and Georgia.

Without a vision, such a work might be undertaken by the policy
of Cabades; without a miracle, it might be accomplished by his
son, so formidable to the Romans, under the name of Chosroes; so
dear to the Orientals, under the appellation of Nushirwan. The
Persian monarch held in his hand the keys both of peace and war;
but he stipulated, in every treaty, that Justinian should
contribute to the expense of a common barrier, which equally
protected the two empires from the inroads of the Scythians. 142

138 (return) [ For the city and pass of Derbend, see D’Herbelot,
(Bibliot. Orient. p. 157, 291, 807,) Petit de la Croix. (Hist. de
Gengiscan, l. iv. c. 9,) Histoire Genealogique des Tatars, (tom.
i. p. 120,) Olearius, (Voyage en Perse, p. 1039—1041,) and
Corneille le Bruyn, (Voyages, tom. i. p. 146, 147:) his view may
be compared with the plan of Olearius, who judges the wall to be
of shells and gravel hardened by time.]

139 (return) [ Procopius, though with some confusion, always
denominates them Caspian, (Persic. l. i. c. 10.) The pass is now
styled Tatar-topa, the Tartar-gates, (D’Anville, Geographie
Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 119, 120.)]

1391 (return) [ Malte-Brun. tom. viii. p. 12, makes three passes:
1. The central, which leads from Mosdok to Teflis. 2. The
Albanian, more inland than the Derbend Pass. 3. The Derbend—the
Caspian Gates. But the narrative of Col. Monteith, in the Journal
of the Geographical Society of London. vol. iii. p. i. p. 39,
clearly shows that there are but two passes between the Black Sea
and the Caspian; the central, the Caucasian, or, as Col. Monteith
calls it, the Caspian Gates, and the pass of Derbend, though it
is practicable to turn this position (of Derbend) by a road a few
miles distant through the mountains, p. 40.—M.]

140 (return) [ The imaginary rampart of Gog and Magog, which was
seriously explored and believed by a caliph of the ninth century,
appears to be derived from the gates of Mount Caucasus, and a
vague report of the wall of China, (Geograph. Nubiensis, p.
267-270. Memoires de l’Academie, tom. xxxi. p. 210—219.)]

141 (return) [ See a learned dissertation of Baier, de muro
Caucaseo, in Comment. Acad. Petropol. ann. 1726, tom. i. p.
425-463; but it is destitute of a map or plan. When the czar
Peter I. became master of Derbend in the year 1722, the measure
of the wall was found to be 3285 Russian orgyioe, or fathom, each
of seven feet English; in the whole somewhat more than four miles
in length.]

142 (return) [ See the fortifications and treaties of Chosroes,
or Nushirwan, in Procopius (Persic. l. i. c. 16, 22, l. ii.) and
D’Herbelot, (p. 682.)] VII. Justinian suppressed the schools of
Athens and the consulship of Rome, which had given so many sages
and heroes to mankind. Both these institutions had long since
degenerated from their primitive glory; yet some reproach may be
justly inflicted on the avarice and jealousy of a prince, by
whose hand such venerable ruins were destroyed.

Athens, after her Persian triumphs, adopted the philosophy of
Ionia and the rhetoric of Sicily; and these studies became the
patrimony of a city, whose inhabitants, about thirty thousand
males, condensed, within the period of a single life, the genius
of ages and millions. Our sense of the dignity of human nature is
exalted by the simple recollection, that Isocrates 143 was the
companion of Plato and Xenophon; that he assisted, perhaps with
the historian Thucydides, at the first representation of the
Oedipus of Sophocles and the Iphigenia of Euripides; and that his
pupils Aeschines and Demosthenes contended for the crown of
patriotism in the presence of Aristotle, the master of
Theophrastus, who taught at Athens with the founders of the Stoic
and Epicurean sects. 144 The ingenuous youth of Attica enjoyed
the benefits of their domestic education, which was communicated
without envy to the rival cities. Two thousand disciples heard
the lessons of Theophrastus; 145 the schools of rhetoric must
have been still more populous than those of philosophy; and a
rapid succession of students diffused the fame of their teachers
as far as the utmost limits of the Grecian language and name.
Those limits were enlarged by the victories of Alexander; the
arts of Athens survived her freedom and dominion; and the Greek
colonies which the Macedonians planted in Egypt, and scattered
over Asia, undertook long and frequent pilgrimages to worship the
Muses in their favorite temple on the banks of the Ilissus. The
Latin conquerors respectfully listened to the instructions of
their subjects and captives; the names of Cicero and Horace were
enrolled in the schools of Athens; and after the perfect
settlement of the Roman empire, the natives of Italy, of Africa,
and of Britain, conversed in the groves of the academy with their
fellow-students of the East. The studies of philosophy and
eloquence are congenial to a popular state, which encourages the
freedom of inquiry, and submits only to the force of persuasion.
In the republics of Greece and Rome, the art of speaking was the
powerful engine of patriotism or ambition; and the schools of
rhetoric poured forth a colony of statesmen and legislators. When
the liberty of public debate was suppressed, the orator, in the
honorable profession of an advocate, might plead the cause of
innocence and justice; he might abuse his talents in the more
profitable trade of panegyric; and the same precepts continued to
dictate the fanciful declamations of the sophist, and the chaster
beauties of historical composition. The systems which professed
to unfold the nature of God, of man, and of the universe,
entertained the curiosity of the philosophic student; and
according to the temper of his mind, he might doubt with the
Sceptics, or decide with the Stoics, sublimely speculate with
Plato, or severely argue with Aristotle. The pride of the adverse
sects had fixed an unattainable term of moral happiness and
perfection; but the race was glorious and salutary; the disciples
of Zeno, and even those of Epicurus, were taught both to act and
to suffer; and the death of Petronius was not less effectual than
that of Seneca, to humble a tyrant by the discovery of his
impotence. The light of science could not indeed be confined
within the walls of Athens. Her incomparable writers address
themselves to the human race; the living masters emigrated to
Italy and Asia; Berytus, in later times, was devoted to the study
of the law; astronomy and physic were cultivated in the musaeum
of Alexandria; but the Attic schools of rhetoric and philosophy
maintained their superior reputation from the Peloponnesian war
to the reign of Justinian. Athens, though situate in a barren
soil, possessed a pure air, a free navigation, and the monuments
of ancient art. That sacred retirement was seldom disturbed by
the business of trade or government; and the last of the
Athenians were distinguished by their lively wit, the purity of
their taste and language, their social manners, and some traces,
at least in discourse, of the magnanimity of their fathers. In
the suburbs of the city, the academy of the Platonists, the
lycaeum of the Peripatetics, the portico of the Stoics, and the
garden of the Epicureans, were planted with trees and decorated
with statues; and the philosophers, instead of being immured in a
cloister, delivered their instructions in spacious and pleasant
walks, which, at different hours, were consecrated to the
exercises of the mind and body. The genius of the founders still
lived in those venerable seats; the ambition of succeeding to the
masters of human reason excited a generous emulation; and the
merit of the candidates was determined, on each vacancy, by the
free voices of an enlightened people. The Athenian professors
were paid by their disciples: according to their mutual wants and
abilities, the price appears to have varied; and Isocrates
himself, who derides the avarice of the sophists, required, in
his school of rhetoric, about thirty pounds from each of his
hundred pupils. The wages of industry are just and honorable, yet
the same Isocrates shed tears at the first receipt of a stipend:
the Stoic might blush when he was hired to preach the contempt of
money; and I should be sorry to discover that Aristotle or Plato
so far degenerated from the example of Socrates, as to exchange
knowledge for gold. But some property of lands and houses was
settled by the permission of the laws, and the legacies of
deceased friends, on the philosophic chairs of Athens. Epicurus
bequeathed to his disciples the gardens which he had purchased
for eighty minae or two hundred and fifty pounds, with a fund
sufficient for their frugal subsistence and monthly festivals;
146 and the patrimony of Plato afforded an annual rent, which, in
eight centuries, was gradually increased from three to one
thousand pieces of gold. 147 The schools of Athens were protected
by the wisest and most virtuous of the Roman princes. The
library, which Hadrian founded, was placed in a portico adorned
with pictures, statues, and a roof of alabaster, and supported by
one hundred columns of Phrygian marble. The public salaries were
assigned by the generous spirit of the Antonines; and each
professor of politics, of rhetoric, of the Platonic, the
Peripatetic, the Stoic, and the Epicurean philosophy, received an
annual stipend of ten thousand drachmae, or more than three
hundred pounds sterling. 148 After the death of Marcus, these
liberal donations, and the privileges attached to the thrones of
science, were abolished and revived, diminished and enlarged; but
some vestige of royal bounty may be found under the successors of
Constantine; and their arbitrary choice of an unworthy candidate
might tempt the philosophers of Athens to regret the days of
independence and poverty. 149 It is remarkable, that the
impartial favor of the Antonines was bestowed on the four adverse
sects of philosophy, which they considered as equally useful, or
at least, as equally innocent. Socrates had formerly been the
glory and the reproach of his country; and the first lessons of
Epicurus so strangely scandalized the pious ears of the
Athenians, that by his exile, and that of his antagonists, they
silenced all vain disputes concerning the nature of the gods. But
in the ensuing year they recalled the hasty decree, restored the
liberty of the schools, and were convinced by the experience of
ages, that the moral character of philosophers is not affected by
the diversity of their theological speculations. 150

143 (return) [ The life of Isocrates extends from Olymp. lxxxvi.
1. to cx. 3, (ante Christ. 436—438.) See Dionys. Halicarn. tom.
ii. p. 149, 150, edit. Hudson. Plutarch (sive anonymus) in Vit.
X. Oratorum, p. 1538—1543, edit. H. Steph. Phot. cod. cclix. p.
1453.]

144 (return) [ The schools of Athens are copiously though
concisely represented in the Fortuna Attica of Meursius, (c.
viii. p. 59—73, in tom. i. Opp.) For the state and arts of the
city, see the first book of Pausanias, and a small tract of
Dicaearchus, in the second volume of Hudson’s Geographers, who
wrote about Olymp. cxvii. (Dodwell’s Dissertia sect. 4.)]

145 (return) [ Diogen Laert. de Vit. Philosoph. l. v. segm. 37,
p. 289.]

146 (return) [ See the Testament of Epicurus in Diogen. Laert. l.
x. segm. 16—20, p. 611, 612. A single epistle (ad Familiares,
xiii. l.) displays the injustice of the Areopagus, the fidelity
of the Epicureans, the dexterous politeness of Cicero, and the
mixture of contempt and esteem with which the Roman senators
considered the philosophy and philosophers of Greece.]

147 (return) [ Damascius, in Vit. Isidor. apud Photium, cod.
ccxlii. p. 1054.]

148 (return) [ See Lucian (in Eunuch. tom. ii. p. 350—359, edit.
Reitz,) Philostratus (in Vit. Sophist. l. ii. c. 2,) and Dion
Cassius, or Xiphilin, (lxxi. p. 1195,) with their editors Du
Soul, Olearius, and Reimar, and, above all, Salmasius, (ad Hist.
August. p. 72.) A judicious philosopher (Smith’s Wealth of
Nations, vol. ii. p. 340—374) prefers the free contributions of
the students to a fixed stipend for the professor.]

149 (return) [ Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philosoph. tom. ii. p. 310,
&c.]

150 (return) [ The birth of Epicurus is fixed to the year 342
before Christ, (Bayle,) Olympiad cix. 3; and he opened his school
at Athens, Olmp. cxviii. 3, 306 years before the same aera. This
intolerant law (Athenaeus, l. xiii. p. 610. Diogen. Laertius, l.
v. s. 38. p. 290. Julius Pollux, ix. 5) was enacted in the same
or the succeeding year, (Sigonius, Opp. tom. v. p. 62. Menagius
ad Diogen. Laert. p. 204. Corsini, Fasti Attici, tom. iv. p. 67,
68.) Theophrastus chief of the Peripatetics, and disciple of
Aristotle, was involved in the same exile.]

The Gothic arms were less fatal to the schools of Athens than the
establishment of a new religion, whose ministers superseded the
exercise of reason, resolved every question by an article of
faith, and condemned the infidel or sceptic to eternal flames. In
many a volume of laborious controversy, they exposed the weakness
of the understanding and the corruption of the heart, insulted
human nature in the sages of antiquity, and proscribed the spirit
of philosophical inquiry, so repugnant to the doctrine, or at
least to the temper, of an humble believer. The surviving sects
of the Platonists, whom Plato would have blushed to acknowledge,
extravagantly mingled a sublime theory with the practice of
superstition and magic; and as they remained alone in the midst
of a Christian world, they indulged a secret rancor against the
government of the church and state, whose severity was still
suspended over their heads. About a century after the reign of
Julian, 151 Proclus 152 was permitted to teach in the philosophic
chair of the academy; and such was his industry, that he
frequently, in the same day, pronounced five lessons, and
composed seven hundred lines. His sagacious mind explored the
deepest questions of morals and metaphysics, and he ventured to
urge eighteen arguments against the Christian doctrine of the
creation of the world. But in the intervals of study, he
personally conversed with Pan, Aesculapius, and Minerva, in whose
mysteries he was secretly initiated, and whose prostrate statues
he adored; in the devout persuasion that the philosopher, who is
a citizen of the universe, should be the priest of its various
deities. An eclipse of the sun announced his approaching end; and
his life, with that of his scholar Isidore, 153 compiled by two
of their most learned disciples, exhibits a deplorable picture of
the second childhood of human reason. Yet the golden chain, as it
was fondly styled, of the Platonic succession, continued
forty-four years from the death of Proclus to the edict of
Justinian, 154 which imposed a perpetual silence on the schools
of Athens, and excited the grief and indignation of the few
remaining votaries of Grecian science and superstition. Seven
friends and philosophers, Diogenes and Hermias, Eulalius and
Priscian, Damascius, Isidore, and Simplicius, who dissented from
the religion of their sovereign, embraced the resolution of
seeking in a foreign land the freedom which was denied in their
native country. They had heard, and they credulously believed,
that the republic of Plato was realized in the despotic
government of Persia, and that a patriot king reigned ever the
happiest and most virtuous of nations. They were soon astonished
by the natural discovery, that Persia resembled the other
countries of the globe; that Chosroes, who affected the name of a
philosopher, was vain, cruel, and ambitious; that bigotry, and a
spirit of intolerance, prevailed among the Magi; that the nobles
were haughty, the courtiers servile, and the magistrates unjust;
that the guilty sometimes escaped, and that the innocent were
often oppressed. The disappointment of the philosophers provoked
them to overlook the real virtues of the Persians; and they were
scandalized, more deeply perhaps than became their profession,
with the plurality of wives and concubines, the incestuous
marriages, and the custom of exposing dead bodies to the dogs and
vultures, instead of hiding them in the earth, or consuming them
with fire. Their repentance was expressed by a precipitate
return, and they loudly declared that they had rather die on the
borders of the empire, than enjoy the wealth and favor of the
Barbarian. From this journey, however, they derived a benefit
which reflects the purest lustre on the character of Chosroes. He
required, that the seven sages who had visited the court of
Persia should be exempted from the penal laws which Justinian
enacted against his Pagan subjects; and this privilege, expressly
stipulated in a treaty of peace, was guarded by the vigilance of
a powerful mediator. 155 Simplicius and his companions ended
their lives in peace and obscurity; and as they left no
disciples, they terminate the long list of Grecian philosophers,
who may be justly praised, notwithstanding their defects, as the
wisest and most virtuous of their contemporaries. The writings of
Simplicius are now extant. His physical and metaphysical
commentaries on Aristotle have passed away with the fashion of
the times; but his moral interpretation of Epictetus is preserved
in the library of nations, as a classic book, most excellently
adapted to direct the will, to purify the heart, and to confirm
the understanding, by a just confidence in the nature both of God
and man.

151 (return) [ This is no fanciful aera: the Pagans reckoned
their calamities from the reign of their hero. Proclus, whose
nativity is marked by his horoscope, (A.D. 412, February 8, at C.
P.,) died 124 years, A.D. 485, (Marin. in Vita Procli, c. 36.)]

152 (return) [ The life of Proclus, by Marinus, was published by
Fabricius (Hamburg, 1700, et ad calcem Bibliot. Latin. Lond.
1703.) See Saidas, (tom. iii. p. 185, 186,) Fabricius, (Bibliot.
Graec. l. v. c. 26 p. 449—552,) and Brucker, (Hist. Crit.
Philosoph. tom. ii. p. 319—326)]

153 (return) [ The life of Isidore was composed by Damascius,
(apud Photium, sod. ccxlii. p. 1028—1076.) See the last age of
the Pagan philosophers, in Brucker, (tom. ii. p. 341—351.)]

154 (return) [ The suppression of the schools of Athens is
recorded by John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 187, sub Decio Cos. Sol.,)
and an anonymous Chronicle in the Vatican library, (apud Aleman.
p. 106.)]

155 (return) [ Agathias (l. ii. p. 69, 70, 71) relates this
curious story Chosroes ascended the throne in the year 531, and
made his first peace with the Romans in the beginning of 533—a
date most compatible with his young fame and the old age of
Isidore, (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. iii. p. 404. Pagi, tom.
ii. p. 543, 550.)]

About the same time that Pythagoras first invented the
appellation of philosopher, liberty and the consulship were
founded at Rome by the elder Brutus. The revolutions of the
consular office, which may be viewed in the successive lights of
a substance, a shadow, and a name, have been occasionally
mentioned in the present History. The first magistrates of the
republic had been chosen by the people, to exercise, in the
senate and in the camp, the powers of peace and war, which were
afterwards translated to the emperors. But the tradition of
ancient dignity was long revered by the Romans and Barbarians. A
Gothic historian applauds the consulship of Theodoric as the
height of all temporal glory and greatness; 156 the king of Italy
himself congratulated those annual favorites of fortune who,
without the cares, enjoyed the splendor of the throne; and at the
end of a thousand years, two consuls were created by the
sovereigns of Rome and Constantinople, for the sole purpose of
giving a date to the year, and a festival to the people. But the
expenses of this festival, in which the wealthy and the vain
aspired to surpass their predecessors, insensibly arose to the
enormous sum of fourscore thousand pounds; the wisest senators
declined a useless honor, which involved the certain ruin of
their families, and to this reluctance I should impute the
frequent chasms in the last age of the consular Fasti. The
predecessors of Justinian had assisted from the public treasures
the dignity of the less opulent candidates; the avarice of that
prince preferred the cheaper and more convenient method of advice
and regulation. 157 Seven processions or spectacles were the
number to which his edict confined the horse and chariot races,
the athletic sports, the music, and pantomimes of the theatre,
and the hunting of wild beasts; and small pieces of silver were
discreetly substituted to the gold medals, which had always
excited tumult and drunkenness, when they were scattered with a
profuse hand among the populace. Notwithstanding these
precautions, and his own example, the succession of consuls
finally ceased in the thirteenth year of Justinian, whose
despotic temper might be gratified by the silent extinction of a
title which admonished the Romans of their ancient freedom. 158
Yet the annual consulship still lived in the minds of the people;
they fondly expected its speedy restoration; they applauded the
gracious condescension of successive princes, by whom it was
assumed in the first year of their reign; and three centuries
elapsed, after the death of Justinian, before that obsolete
dignity, which had been suppressed by custom, could be abolished
by law. 159 The imperfect mode of distinguishing each year by the
name of a magistrate, was usefully supplied by the date of a
permanent aera: the creation of the world, according to the
Septuagint version, was adopted by the Greeks; 160 and the
Latins, since the age of Charlemagne, have computed their time
from the birth of Christ. 161

156 (return) [ Cassiodor. Variarum Epist. vi. 1. Jornandes, c.
57, p. 696, dit. Grot. Quod summum bonum primumque in mundo decus
dicitur.]

157 (return) [ See the regulations of Justinian, (Novell. cv.,)
dated at Constantinople, July 5, and addressed to Strategius,
treasurer of the empire.]

158 (return) [ Procopius, in Anecdot. c. 26. Aleman. p. 106. In
the xviiith year after the consulship of Basilius, according to
the reckoning of Marcellinus, Victor, Marius, &c., the secret
history was composed, and, in the eyes of Procopius, the
consulship was finally abolished.]

159 (return) [ By Leo, the philosopher, (Novell. xciv. A.D.
886-911.) See Pagi (Dissertat. Hypatica, p. 325—362) and Ducange,
(Gloss, Graec p. 1635, 1636.) Even the title was vilified:
consulatus codicilli.. vilescunt, says the emperor himself.]

160 (return) [ According to Julius Africanus, &c., the world was
created the first of September, 5508 years, three months, and
twenty-five days before the birth of Christ. (See Pezron,
Antiquite des Tems defendue, p. 20—28.) And this aera has been
used by the Greeks, the Oriental Christians, and even by the
Russians, till the reign of Peter I The period, however
arbitrary, is clear and convenient. Of the 7296 years which are
supposed to elapse since the creation, we shall find 3000 of
ignorance and darkness; 2000 either fabulous or doubtful; 1000 of
ancient history, commencing with the Persian empire, and the
Republics of Rome and Athens; 1000 from the fall of the Roman
empire in the West to the discovery of America; and the remaining
296 will almost complete three centuries of the modern state of
Europe and mankind. I regret this chronology, so far preferable
to our double and perplexed method of counting backwards and
forwards the years before and after the Christian era.]

161 (return) [ The aera of the world has prevailed in the East
since the vith general council, (A.D. 681.) In the West, the
Christian aera was first invented in the vith century: it was
propagated in the viiith by the authority and writings of
venerable Bede; but it was not till the xth that the use became
legal and popular. See l’Art de Veriner les Dates, Dissert.
Preliminaire, p. iii. xii. Dictionnaire Diplomatique, tom. i. p.
329—337; the works of a laborious society of Benedictine monks.]