Chapter M: Antoninus Caracalla. Macrinus. Elagabalus. Alexander Severus (2)

Valerian died in captivity. Gallienus is reproached for having made no attempt to ransom his father; but, ought he to have done so by giving up provinces? This is the time of the so-called thirty tyrants, a term which has been exploded long ago. Gallienus was a worthless prince, living only for his lusts, and seeking to take his ease in the midst of the most dreadful calamities. He always remained in possession of Italy and of the Noric and Illyrian frontier, and, with hardly an exception, of Greece and Africa: (for a short time only, his authority in Ægypt was disputed). In the East, Syria and the eastern provinces of Asia Minor remained under the rule of Odenathus, and after his death, under that of his great widow Zenobia: these were in some measure acknowledged by the senate and by Gallienus, so that the latter even had a triumph for the victories of Odenathus. From 256, or 260, to 268, Gallienus reigned alone; but in the meanwhile Gaul, Britain, and Spain, even the whole of what was afterwards the _Præfectura Gallica_, were torn away by Postumus, and became a compact territory having its own princes: these may be called emperors with as much right as Gallienus himself, although this would be contrary to Roman orthodoxy. Postumus was a very eminent man: he ruled over this great empire nearly ten years, and, if we may rely on his coins, gained a succession of brilliant victories over the Barbarians, particularly the Alemanni, and the Franks. The Alemanni must at that time have undertaken a wide wasting expedition as far as Spain, perhaps in the service of one of the then Emperors. The real name of Postumus is M. Cassianus[60] Latinius Postumus. He has left behind him a noble reputation; but the misfortunes of Gaul already now begin, as is proved by the destruction of Autun, which from that time lay in ruins until the reign of Diocletian: Spain also was devastated by the Barbarians. At Mentz, Ælianus[61] had usurped the imperial title; but he was conquered by Postumus, who in his turn lost his life when he would not let his soldiers pillage that city. He was succeeded by Victorinus, (his full name is M. Piavvonius Victorinus,) a brave but profligate general, whose outrages brought upon himself death from the hands of a deeply injured man. Then followed Marius, a common armourer, and after him a great Gallic lord, C. Pesuvius Tetricus, who was acknowledged throughout the whole of what was afterwards called the Gallic Prefecture, and maintained himself there until the reign of Aurelian. Here it is plainly to be seen how the division into prefectures was altogether founded upon circumstances, and by no means an arbitrary one. The nation now consists of Latinized Celts and Latinized Iberians, who were distinguished from the Italians by very decided peculiarities of their own.

The empire of Palmyra, as Eckhel justly remarks in opposition to Gibbon, did not reach beyond Egypt and the countries of the Levant: Egypt perhaps it only comprised in the last years, under Claudius Gothicus. From coins especially, one may learn much, although they are often enigmatical, that is to say, they give us enigmas to solve which but for them would have never come to us at all. In Illyricum, Africa, Egypt, even in peaceful Achaia, pretenders now arose, whose rule indeed lasted but a short time, yet they most sadly distracted the empire. The whole of the state, in fact, now consisted of three distinct masses. In the first place, there was the empire of Rome; secondly, there was the West or Gallic empire; and thirdly, that of the East. In Gaul, even very far back indeed, as early as the days of Augustus and Tiberius, a marked spirit of independence might have been observed, whereas Spain was much more sincerely united to Rome: in the East, it was quite the reverse, just as in Gaul. Treves was even at that time the seat of government, as perhaps it was also under Postumus and Victorinus, although they often lived at Cologne: Neuwied is called on the inscriptions _Victoriensis_, which may have some connexion with Victorinus and his mother Victoria. The _Porta Nigra_ at Treves belongs to this time. It is a Roman gate, on each side of which there are basilicas: the whole building is of no older date. The capital of such an empire might well have had large structures. Taste had already fallen to a very low ebb.

CLAUDIUS GOTHICUS. AURELIAN. TACITUS. PROBUS. CARUS.

A northern pretender, Aureolus, having marched from Rhætia against Milan, Gallienus fell during the siege of this town, most likely by the hands of his own men. He was a curse to the Roman empire, and his death was its deliverance. After him came a great man, M. Aurelius Claudius, who received the well-earned name of Gothicus. This emperor had to face a new invasion of the Goths, who burst in by the Propontis, and once more destroyed Cyzicus. These now made their appearance in Macedon, besieged even Thessalonica, and from thence marched into the interior of the country. There they met with Claudius, and they wished to retreat back again to the Danube; but Claudius defeated them near Nissa, on the borders of Bulgaria and Servia, in a great battle in which they were all but annihilated. New hordes, however, were always pouring in, the East and West Goths being now joined by the Vandals; and Claudius, while going on with the war against them, died at Sirmium in the middle of his career, either of the plague or of an epidemic caused by the war. The seat of the disease seems to have been in Mœsia, where it did great havoc, both among the Romans and among the Goths. He was succeeded by Aurelian.

The victory of Claudius over the Goths had ensured the safety of the Roman empire, although he still left much undone. The empire of Palmyra evidently was friendly, and it protected the eastern frontier: with Tetricus, the relations were at least perfectly peaceful. Claudius himself had recommended Aurelian as the ablest of his generals, and the senate and the army swore allegiance to him. Aurelian did great things during the five years of his reign (until 273): he restored the empire. One might be tempted to apply to him the remarkable passage in Curtius;[62] but it is not to be believed that such pure Latin should have still been written in his reign. Gibbon must have thought this less unlikely, as far at least as regards the time of Gordian, for which he decides; but the passage on Tyre,[63] to have any meaning at all, must be referred to the times of Septimius Severus and Caracalla. Although Aurelian is no ideal of a character, yet there is much in his reign which gives one pleasure, like every age in which anything that has fallen into ruin has been restored. But unhappily there are also here no sufficient sources; all is obscure: the imperial history, on the whole, is much more so than that of the republic; we are much better able to reconstruct the history of the twelfth and thirteenth century from the chronicles. The accounts we have of Aurelian, although they may be strung together, form no history: the coins are far safer authorities for this time, and with these the statements of our wretched historians cannot be made to agree. Gibbon has done everything that was possible, nor will his work ever be surpassed.

Aurelian passed the five years of his reign in an activity which beggars belief, going from one frontier to another, and from war to war. At first, he wisely made peace with the Goths, to whom he gave up the claims of Rome on Dacia. This country may have been in a condition like that of Gaul in the fifth century. The Romans may have kept their ground only in the impassable places of Transylvania, which he now evacuated, there being no hope left of driving back the Goths who had made inroads almost everywhere. The population of Dacia had been so much weakened by the wars, that the country could not be kept: those who wished to leave it, now settled in Bulgaria which thereby gained strength.—The war against the great Zenobia, who was already dreaming of nothing less than an Asiatic empire, was decided by two battles, at Antioch and at Emesa. As Zenobia could stand her ground against the Persians, but not against the Roman legions, her infantry must have been bad: it may be that she had formed in Syria a militia which overawed the Persians, whereas the Romans, who did not wish to give arms into the hands of the borderers, carried on the war with the aid of mercenaries. Zenobia’s defence of Palmyra did not answer the expectation which was entertained of her courage; for she fled and was taken prisoner. In her captivity, she showed herself to be an Asiatic woman, by sacrificing her best advisers as having beguiled her into bad policy: among these was the ingenious Longinus. As without doubt, even at that time, there was in many minds the idea of a Greek Asiatic Empire, an intellectual Greek like Longinus may indeed have suggested such a thought to his princess. It was one of the acts which have stained Aurelian’s purple, that he had this distinguished man put to death; and still worse was his giving up Palmyra to destruction on account of a rebellion of its inhabitants.

Thus the East was again tranquillized, the peace with the Persians being secured until the times of Carus, as it seems, by treaties. Aurelian now returned to Europe to reunite the West with the empire; whereupon he was met by Tetricus, who felt that his own life was not safe among the mutinous soldiers, and wished to get himself out of this position: but the soldiers of Tetricus fought with such spirit in the neighbourhood of Chalons, that one may see how national was their cause, and how determined was the wish for separation. It is remarkable that the French historians have never understood nor discerned the national development of France, which always renewed itself from the time of Julius Cæsar; just as they also have ever overlooked the distinctly marked difference between the literature of Northern and Southern France. It cannot be accurately made out, whether it was now, or somewhat sooner or later, that the German tribes broke through the frontier. The Alemanni, Lombards (Juthungi), and Vandals—the first two at least—passed the Po and threatened Rome: they were defeated near Fano (_Fanum Fortunæ_), very nearly in the same neighbourhood where Hasdrubal fell in the second Punic War.

Aurelian, who could not live without war, was on the eve of renewing that against the Persians: but he was murdered while on his march, at the crafty instigation, it is said, of an infamous secretary whose fraud he had found out. This story, however, is perhaps one of the many tales which were devised to screen the guilt of the real perpetrators: another conspiracy had already been discovered once before. The army bewailed him, and determined that none of the leading men who had had a share in his murder should reap any advantage from it. This accounts for the strange demand which the army made to the senate, to appoint the successor of Aurelian. The senate mistrusted this, or it was afraid that the soldiers might repent; but the latter are said to have so steadfastly stood by their declaration, that the empire remained for eight months without an emperor, nor did any one arise in the provinces.

At last,—so we are told,—Tacitus, the _princeps senatus_, was elected, who was distinguished for everything that could at all distinguish a senator,—immense fortune, of which he made a good use; a blameless life; administrative skill; and in his youth, military valour. On his election, he gave the senate the promise that he would look upon himself as its servant; whereupon the senators already began to give themselves up to their daydreams of freedom and power. The emperor was now to be their first servant; all rule and might was to be in the hands of the senate, and the republic was to be restored:—in a word, they expected to be like the senate of Venice. But that dream lasted but a short time. Tacitus went to the army in Asia Minor. The statement of his advanced age rests on the authority of the latest Greeks, and deserves little credit: the earlier writers say nothing about it. How they could then have elected an old man in his seventy-sixth year, is scarcely to be understood, as they needed a military prince. This reminds us of the Roman Cardinals, who elect an aged Pope to have so much more the hope of succeeding him themselves. Although Tacitus carried on the war against the Alans with success, the Romans were not yet rid of their causes for uneasiness in that quarter. When he died at Tarsus, in all likelihood it was quietly in his bed, of illness or exhaustion: murder seems not to be thought of. After his death, the throne was usurped by his brother Quintilius,[64] to whom however the legions refused obedience.

They proclaimed Probus emperor, who is the most excellent of the Cæsars of that age. Quite as great a general as Aurelian, he still at the same time turned his mind to the protection of the empire against foreign foes, and to raising it at home from the wretched condition into which it had fallen. He had many rebellions to put down, but he had especially to wage war against the Alans, the Franks, the Alemanni, and the Sarmatians. The Franks he drove back into the marshes of the Netherlands; and he not only defeated the Alemanni, but he also crossed the Rhine, and regained the Suabian empire: he is likewise said to have repaired the _limes_. We are told that he wanted to form Germany into a province, which at that time was much more feasible than it had been before: for the southern Germans had already become much nearer to the Romans in their manners. Had Diocletian given himself the same trouble, and established a Roman power in the south of Germany, he might perhaps have succeeded.—It would have been possible to collect the Germans into towns, and to accustom them to a regular city life, for in the reign of Valentinian, we find them afterwards on the banks of the Neckar already settled in larger villages and in fortified towns, and no longer in scattered cottages. Probus achieved an incredible number of great undertakings in every quarter, crossing the empire from one frontier to the other with the power and speed of lightning: rest, during the five years of his reign, he never once enjoyed; but, on the other hand, he was unspeakably beloved by his people. Once also he triumphed in Rome, as Aurelian had likewise done: yet his coins not only bear the legend, _Invicto Imperatori Probo_, but also _Bono Imperatori Probo_. The soldiers only became estranged from him, because he made their work too hard, as he exacted from them, besides all their military duty, task-service for the restoration of the provinces. Like Aurelian and Decius, he came from the neighbourhood of the _Limes Illyricus_, being perhaps descended from military settlers; and therefore he wished to revive tillage in the neighbourhood of Sermium, and to drain the fens. To this unwholesome labour he kept the soldiers, employing them in digging the drains. As he did not yield to any representations made to him, the soldiers can scarcely be blamed when in their despair they would bear the heavy yoke no longer. He was murdered in the year 282; yet they still wept over his loss.

After his death, they raised the _præfectus prætorio_ Carus to the throne. Whether Carus was born at Rome, or in Illyricum, or at Narbonne, we do not know: in a letter which is still extant, he calls himself a Roman senator,—a proof that the _senatus consultum_ in the reign of Gallienus, that no senator should be a general, must have been something different from what is generally believed, and even Gibbon thinks it to have been. Perhaps Gallienus only took away from the senators the government of the provinces with the _imperium_, so that this was put an end to altogether, except in the short time of the reign of Tacitus; but even then, he did not shut them out from every kind of military command. As Carus also was quite in his element when there was a war, he led his soldiers against the Persians with the most signal success; and this was the last war but one in which this was the case: he is said to have retaken Ctesiphon; but this cannot be positively asserted. However this may be, Persia had lost the power which she had in the days of Ardaschir; and the Persian king Bahram, who was paralysed by fear, was quite unable to make head against the Roman army. Carus penetrated very far beyond the Persian frontier. Here he is said to have been struck by lightning in his tent:—whether this be true, or whether he did not rather fall by the hands of assassins, we cannot make out for certain. The soldiers, however, could not be got to advance any further: the omen of the _prætorium_ struck by lightning was too dreadful. Numerian the son of Carus, a well educated and well-bred young man, good-hearted but unwarlike, was in the camp; the other one, Carinus, had remained in Rome: the latter was another Commodus, being a profligate and a tyrant. Numerian died, and the _præfectus prætorio_, Arrius Aper, is said to have concealed his death to found his own dominion on it. But it was detected; and it was laid to the charge of Aper by the Illyrian Diocletian, who was backed by the favour of the army. Being the most distinguished of the generals, he put forth claims to the throne: as for Carinus, he had made himself so hateful by his profligacy, that the army would not hear of him. Diocletian stabbed Aper with his own hands. A female soothsayer had told him that he should ascend the throne, if he killed an _aper_; and therefore in all his hunts, he had tried to kill a wild boar. The oracle now came true. Carinus gathered together the legions of the west, and great battle in Mœsia decided the fate of the throne. For when Carinus was on the point of gaining the victory, he was stabbed by a man whom he had foully wronged; and the soldiers now acknowledged Diocletian, who had been all but beaten, as their emperor, 285.

DIOCLETIAN. LITERATURE AND GENERAL STATE OF THE THEN WORLD. MAXIMIAN.
HIS SUCCESSORS. CONSTANTINE.

The reign of Diocletian forms a great epoch in Roman history. He shows himself everywhere a distinguished man: although we may censure many of his plans, yet even to have made an attempt is a proof of that ability which shines forth in everything that he did, and in the whole of his reign. There now follows a time which, when compared with the former ones, is one of recovery, and which lasted about an hundred years, down to the battle of Hadrianople (378). During this period, the government is settled in one dynasty, and the establishment of the Christian religion is greatly facilitated. One great source of relief was, the ceasing of some years, ever since Probus, of the frightful plague which had so long wasted the Roman empire. It had first made its appearance in the reign of M. Antoninus and L. Verus, when, however, it was far from spreading over every part of the world; even in the time of Septimius Severus, as we know from Tertullian, it had not yet visited Africa: about the middle of the third century, until just before the reign of Decius, epidemics are mentioned. The real terrible plague broke out in the days of Decius (249), although I would not take it upon myself to say that it did not exist previously: in the reign of Commodus, and also of Caracalla, there was a very fierce plague at Rome; but in that of Decius it spreads all over the Roman empire, making dreadful ravages even in Africa and Egypt as well. Thus it still continues. Claudius dies at Sirmium of the plague in 270, and in the days of Gallienus and Valerian its fury is unabated: as many as two thousand people are said at times to have died at Rome in one day. Dionysius the bishop tells us that, when the plague had left off in Alexandria, the number of all the grown up persons from fourteen to seventy, was not greater than what had formerly been the number of those who were between forty and seventy; whence it follows, that about the third part only—not, as Gibbon states, one half of the inhabitants had remained alive. From the beginning of this period, date the last writings of Saint Cyprian, and his remarkable treatise against Demetrian, in which this great mortality is distinctly acknowledged: even at that time, people had begun to lay this decrease of the human race to the charge of the Christians. After the black death, as Matteo Villani, a contemporary writer, remarks, when people thought that they should have everything in abundance, just the reverse took place, namely a grievous famine, owing to there not being men enough to till the fields. This also happened now; and it was even yet a great deal worse, as the finest countries were laid waste by the ravages of the barbarians.

In the same proportion as the world was made desolate, did intellect also decay. Until the middle of the third century, the western world was very civilized; we still meet with distinguished poetical talent, and jurisprudence reached its highest state of development: but after that time, down to the days of Constantine, we already find throughout it the most downright barbarism: in the plastic arts, the decline begins even as early as in the times of Septimius Severus, the busts alone being still somewhat tolerable. As for poems, that of Nemesian on the chase, and the eclogues of Calpurnius in the reign of Carinus, are very characteristic of the age: it is sheer verse-making. Prose is no longer to be met with. There is indeed not one writer of it worth mentioning, except Lactantius the contemporary of Constantine, who has made the style of Cicero quite his own: even as Curtius is a reproduction of Livy, so is Lactantius of Cicero. Yet the man himself is also interesting: in his seventh book, he shows real imagination. Before him lived Arnobius, who is instructive and useful, his erudition being of great value to us; but he is without originality.

In the East, a different class of writers had arisen. Instead of people trying, as in the second and third centuries, to reproduce the ancient Attic, the language of Plato and Demosthenes, which Dio Chrysostom and several others after him had done; there sprang up in the third century, from the times of Ammonius in Syria, the so-called New-Platonism, a system which aimed at higher things, and from the intellect which there was in it, was widely different from the rhetorical school before it. But it became thoroughly unreal, inasmuch as its votaries tampered with the hallowed mysteries of former times, being ashamed of them in their old form, and had foisted in what was altogether foreign to it.

Of the events which now follow, I can give you but an outline, such as every one ought to know by heart. Too great a stress was formerly laid on such a chronological skeleton of history; yet it ought not to be altogether neglected: the succession of the Roman emperors, with the dates of their reigns, is what every one ought to have in his memory. Diocletian had reigned for about a year, when, without any external cause, he took his countryman Maximian as his colleague. Of Diocletian we have many hostile accounts; but they are very much exaggerated, nor are they the only ones. It is said that his father had been a slave, or at best a freedman; by this, however, a _colonus_, perhaps is meant, that is to say, a serf from the Dalmatian frontier. He cannot himself have been a slave, as slaves were not yet at that time received in the legions: the derivation of his name from Doclea, a town on the Dalmatian frontier, is a very likely one indeed. Diocletian had risen in the army by his own merit, a fact which sufficiently refutes the charge of cowardice brought against him as well as many other great generals, such as Napoleon. Against the latter also this charge is highly unjust. He often wanted moral courage, as, for instance, on the 19th of Brumaire; but the courage of a general he had. He is taxed with cowardice in cases when he did not choose to place himself in a position in which he could neither see nor hear, and thus neglect his duties as a general; but in so doing he was perfectly justified. Only he ought to have died at Waterloo: his leaving that battlefield can never be excused.—Diocletian was, on the whole, a mild man. On two occasions only, he laid himself open to the charge of cruelty,—in his chastisement of the rebels at Alexandria, and in his persecution of the Christians, to the latter of which he was beguiled in his old age by Galerius. Maximian, on the contrary, was a coarse and cruel man, who murdered the Roman nobles to get held of their treasures; or because he had been offended; or else because their very rank annoyed him: for the senate seems now to have become more and more hereditary.

Diocletian, who was a man of uncommon shrewdness, could not disguise from himself, how highly dangerous it was to keep jarring elements together by force. He therefore bethought himself of what would seem the strange plan of healing the many splits between the East and the West by a distinct government for each under different princes, they being, however, so united by one common centre, as still to form one whole. This worked well so long as he reigned himself. The legislative power, the consulship, and the high offices were to be in common: but in both parts of the empire there was to be a distinct _Augustus_; and by the side of every Augustus a _Cæsar_ as his coadjutor, who was to succeed to the throne after his death. The latter clause was to prevent the throne from being kept vacant, or being given away by the soldiers. It would seem that the senior Augustus had the right of naming the Cæsars. The _Præfectura Galliarum_ (which consisted of Gaul, Britain, and Spain), together with Mauretania, was to have a Cæsar; Italy and Africa were placed under the immediate rule of the Augustus. The countries on the Danube, Pannonia and Mœsia (afterwards the _præfectura_ of Illyria), were likewise under a Cæsar: the other Augustus had the whole of the East. All these were ingenious combinations: but they showed by their result, what such combinations will generally lead to.

Diocletian reigned for twenty years (from 285 to 305), and then by his paramount influence, he got Maximian to resign his dignity at the same time with him (May 1st, 305); so that, while he was yet living, the machine might be set up anew. The Cæsar in the East, Galerius, and his colleague Constantius, were both of them Illyrians. The former was a common soldier who had gotten the surname of _Armentarius_ from having been a drover; the other (to whom we do not give the name of Chlorus, as it is only to be found in Byzantine writers, and not even in the earlier ones, nor on coins; and as we are not able to make out its derivation) was of high birth, his father being a man of rank in the diocese of Illyricum, and his mother a niece of the Emperor Claudius Gothicus. The two were of a very different stamp. Constantius was an accomplished and well educated gentleman; Galerius was a rough fellow: both of them, however, were distinguished generals, though indeed Galerius was the bolder of the two. This division led afterwards to that of the empire into prefectures: not only every Augustus, but also every Cæsar had his _præfectus prætorio_; whence arose the four dioceses, each of which had a _præfectus_, as we see at a later period, there being traces of it even in the times of Justinian. Of the other measures of Diocletian, we shall mention here but the following. He transplanted the ceremonial of the East into his court: neither of the two emperors, however, resided at Rome; Maximian lived at Milan; Diocletian, in Nicomedia. Whatever may be said of Constantine, he was a great man: one of the many traits which mark him as such, is his not overlooking the situation of Byzantium. If those who founded Chalcedon were called blind by the oracle, Diocletian also is among the blind. In those eastern parts therefore, in which Asiatic manners spread more and more, Diocletian completely adopted the etiquette of the East.

The most important events in this reign, are the revolt of Britain under Carausius; a rising in Egypt; and the Persian war, the most glorious for a long time which the Romans had waged, and even the last glorious war of all.

Carausius—the admiral of a fleet stationed at Bononia (Boulogne) to keep in check the Franks and other tribes in the Netherlands, who had already begun to carry on piracy—revolted; made himself master of Britain; and assumed the title of Augustus. After having once been even acknowledged by Diocletian and Maximian, he was murdered by his own soldiers: his successor Allectus, who seized the reins of government after him, was overpowered by Constantius.—The reduction of Egypt was achieved by Diocletian himself: after a long siege, Alexandria had to surrender at discretion, and was severely punished.—Against Persia, Galerius had the command for two campaigns; and though, at first, he suffered a defeat, he afterwards gained a decided victory, routing and scattering the Persians, whose king was obliged to make peace. Armenia was recognised as a tributary dependency of Rome; Aderbidjan, with Tauris its capital, was given up by Persia to Armenia; Rome likewise gained the countries south of Lake Van as far as Mosul to the east, that is to say the countries on the Euphrates and Tigris, even beyond the eastern banks of the latter river. This happened A. D. 296, four years after the appointment of the _Cæsares_. Time hinders me from dwelling on the persecutions of the Christians by Diocletian; so that I shall only remark that Diocletian and his counsellors, going against the stream, and quite heedless of the wants of the age (even looking upon the matter in a worldly point of view), sought to crush the Christian religion. This led them to that shocking persecution, which, however, was not so frightful as we are wont to believe it to have been. Dodwell is right in saying that it was nothing to what the Duke of Alva did in the Netherlands. Yet it was after all a struggle against the tide: for whenever a people wills a thing in good earnest, it does not allow itself to be kept back. Annihilation or slavery alone are able to stop its onward march.

The results of the new measures were like those which we have seen during the last forty years in Europe, where constitutions have been drawn up, which when brought to bear on life and its real business, have worked quite differently from what had been expected. After Diocletian and Maximian’s resignation, Constantius and Galerius succeeded as _Augusti_, and the places of the Cæsars became vacant. As the _Augusti_ were bound to make Milan or Nicomedia their abode, Constantius remained in Gaul, where his court was generally at Treves. In his stead, a Cæsar was to be appointed, who had to rule over Africa and Italy; and Galerius, claiming the right of nomination, made choice of another Illyrian named Severus: over the East he set his own nephew Maximinus Daza, a common soldier, to whom he gave the administration of Syria and Egypt, while he himself remained in Nicomedia, and kept Illyricum, Greece, and Asia Minor. The persecution of the Christians went on at a fearful rate, but without any effect; so that at last it was even obliged to slacken.

Diocletian remained quiet during all these changes; but old Maximian did not approve of them. He returned from Lucania to Rome, where he again came forth as an Augustus, and got the senate to proclaim his son Maxentius a Cæsar instead of Severus. Soon afterwards, Constantius died, and the legions proclaimed his son Constantine Augustus; but Galerius, who had formerly plotted against his life, wished to acknowledge him as Cæsar only, and on the other hand, appointed Severus Augustus, and set him on against Maximian and Maxentius. But Severus died in his attempt to invade Italy, and Constantine for the present submitted to the degradation.

Constantine was the son of Constantius’ first wife Helena, a woman of low birth from Roussillon, whom her husband had been obliged to put away that he might marry Theodora, a stepdaughter of Maximian. Constantine was thirty-two years old, when his father died. He is a truly great man, and on him the attention of the whole of the then Roman world was directed. Though not an accomplished scholar, neither yet was he an untaught barbarian, as he spoke Greek and Latin.

Whilst Constantine contented himself with establishing his power in the three western provinces, Galerius undertook to avenge the death of Severus on Maxentius. He therefore came with an army to Italy, and advanced as far as Narni; but there he found himself so closely hemmed in by the forces of old Maximian, and so little supported, that he had to retreat and make peace. How it was concluded, we have in truth no account whatever. After the death of Severus, Galerius had given up Illyricum to Licinius, and had bestowed on him at the same time the title of Augustus; the east he had assigned to Maximinus Daza: he acknowledged Constantine as Augustus. Thus the Roman world had no more Cæsars, but six _Augusti_,—Galerius, Licinius, Maximin in the east; Maximian, Maxentius, and Constantine in the west. Notwithstanding this, there was no peace, and the artificial combination of Diocletian proved insufficient. Maximian had given his daughter Fausta in marriage to Constantine, who therefore divorced himself from his first wife Minervina. But dissensions arose between Maximian and his son Maxentius. Maxentius, who was a fell tyrant in the style of Caracalla, had no dutiful feelings towards a father who had raised him to the throne; and he answered the claims of his father to rule the state, by the counter demand that he should retire from public affairs. The prætorians, whom Maxentius had brought out again from the obscurity into which Diocletian had thrown them, decided that Maxentius should reign alone. Maximian now went to his daughter in Gaul, where at first he met with a friendly reception; but he soon got embroiled with Constantine. When the latter tried to secure himself against him, Maximian, who was not able to stand his ground at Arles, fled to Marseilles, where he was besieged, and delivered up as a victim by his own troops. He fell into Constantine’s power, who made him kind promises; notwithstanding which, under the pretext of his having set on foot a conspiracy, he was soon afterwards put to death.

Shortly after began the war of Constantine with Maxentius, so memorable for its important consequences in history, and not less memorable for the triumphal arch of Constantine and Raphael’s painting of the battle. Maxentius ruled Italy as a tyrant, and the oppression of the people had increased. Italy had hitherto been free from the land-tax, having only indirect taxes and a legacy duty to pay; but Maxentius, to whom this, and the revenues raised from Africa, did not yet appear sufficient, proceeded to lay a land and an income tax on Italy. Then was Constantine called upon for help.—In the meanwhile also, Galerius had died, and the European part of his empire had been taken by Licinius, and the Asiatic by Maximin.—Constantine, at the head of a greatly superior force, crossed Mount Cenis; defeated the troops of Maxentius near Turin; marched against Verona, a very strong fortress; besieged it and beat an army which came to its relief; took it, and advanced by the Via Flaminia towards Rome. Maxentius met him three Italian miles from the Porta Collina, near Ponte Mollo. But his whole army was routed and himself killed; and Constantine, amid the general exultation, took possession of Rome.

Soon afterwards, a war broke out in the East between Maximin and Licinius, Their forces encountered near the Thracian Heraclea, when Licinius conquered with a considerably weaker army: Maximin surrendered at discretion in Tarsus, and was condemned to die. There were now but two emperors left, Constantine in the west, Licinius in the east. Between these two, before long, the first war arose, A. D. 314, in which Constantine gained the victory at the battles of Cibalis and Mardia, and Licinius sought and obtained peace on condition of giving up Illyricum, Macedon, and Greece; so that he had only left to him the Asiatic countries, Egypt, and Thrace, such a large and rich dominion, that no state of modern Europe is to be compared to it. After nine years (323), a new war broke out, although Licinius was married to Constantia a half-sister of Constantine, and had children by her. For this struggle, Licinius had equipped a fleet, as had also Constantine: it was the first war since the battle of Actium, in which the Roman Emperors brought fleets into action. Constantine gained a victory near Adrianople; and Crispus, his son by Minervina, who commanded the fleet, decided the war by the battle of Scutari, and forced the Hellespont. Near Chrysopolis, he crossed over to Asia, and again beat the enemy’s reserves: on this, Licinius fled to Cilicia. Here he capitulated. Constantine at first promised him his life; but he did not keep his word: nay, after some time, he even had Licinius, the son of his own sister, a guiltless and most hopeful boy, likewise put to death. Here Constantine first showed signs of cruelty, from which he had hitherto kept himself quite free.

Thus the whole world was again brought into unity. The rest of Constantine’s reign is not very rich in remarkable events. He carried on wars against the Goths and Sarmatians, the latter of whom dwelt in those days from the Theiss to Moravia, whilst the Goths were masters of Dacia. The Sarmatians make their appearance as the lords of vanquished Germans; and these serfs, when arms are put into their hands, take advantage of the opportunity to rid themselves of the yoke. Now were the Sarmatians obliged to apply to the Romans for protection, and they were scattered in all directions under the name of Limigantes: hence a Sarmatian colony as far off as the Moselle, is mentioned by Ausonius. Constantine undoubtedly ruled from the Roman Wall in Scotland to the borders of Khurdistan, and to Mount Atlas, just as Diocletian did.

The restoration of the Empire had begun under Diocletian, and it must also have quite recovered under the rule of Constantine and his sons. One great drawback, however, was the very heavy weight of taxation which Diocletian had devised and Constantine had completed, and the system of indictions. A province was valued in the lump, and assessed at a fixed sum, which was divided into _capita_ (quotas); and these _capita_ were imposed in an arbitrary manner, sometimes several of them on one man, and sometimes one on several persons. The details of this system are not yet sifted as much as one would wish, although Savigny has written a very fine treatise on the subject.[65] The chief revenues were those which were derived from the land-tax, and from personal taxes. These burthens daily became more oppressive as the expense of the army increased, which was more and more composed of mercenaries. It is evident that the value of every kind of produce had now quite fallen off, and with this the complete change of the monetary system was connected. In the third century, silver of a very bad standard was coined, but the currency was not changed: the state seems to have paid in bad silver, and to have required gold in exchange at the rate of good old silver. The sesterces are done away with, and henceforth we meet with the _aurei_, which were formerly mentioned only in connexion with the pay of the soldiers, and even then but seldom. This most wretched coinage, of which all the collections of the kind in Europe may afford specimens,—these chiefly belong to the times between Valerian and Probus,—gave occasion for a great deal of counterfeit money, of which the dies and the whole apparatus have every now and then been found in France. The bad money also accounts for the strange story in Aurelian’s life of an insurrection, of which the master of the mint is said to have been the prime mover. Aurelian, in fact, may have tried to bring in again the good currency, whereas the master of the mint, on his side, may have found his profit in the bad money; just as Itzig and others did in the Seven Years’ War. Constantine, however, made the _aureus_ lighter, in the ratio of 72 to 45, which, as it was a very great relief to the rate payers and to those who were in debt, was a very wise measure. On the whole, there are among his laws not a few sensible and beneficial ones. Others, on the contrary, are mischievous; for instance, he pressed very hardly upon the municipalities.

Historians say that in the beginning of his reign, Constantine was _optimis principibus accensendus_; but afterwards _mediis_, or _vix mediis_. Gibbon judged of him with great fairness; otherwise, he has met with scarcely any but fanatical admirers or detractors, and the manner in which he was idolized by the Eastern church is so bad, that one might easily go into the other extreme. The war against Maxentius was a benefit, and the subjects also of Licinius were freed by his defeat from a very harsh master. The death of Licinius, on the other hand, and that of Crispus, are very ugly facts: but we ought not, after all, to be harder upon Constantine than upon others. His motives in establishing the Christian religion are something very strange indeed. The religion there was in his head, must have been a rare jumble. On his coins, he has the _Sol invictus_; he worships pagan deities, consults the _haruspices_, holds heathen superstitions; and yet he shuts up the temples and builds churches. As the president of the Nicene council, we can only look upon him with disgust: he was himself no Christian at all, and he would only be baptized when in _articulo mortis_. He had taken up the Christian Faith as a superstition, which he mingled with all his other superstitions. When therefore eastern writers speak of him as an ἰσαπόστολος, they do not know what they are saying; and to call him even a saint, is a profanation of the word.

In other respects, Constantine was not a bad man. He had much about him which was like Hadrian, except only as to learning, in which he was very deficient; for though indeed he knew Greek very well, he was destitute of every literary accomplishment: the increasing irritability of the last years of his life, which betrayed him into deeds of cruelty, he has in common with Hadrian. Well known is the unfortunate death of his son Crispus, whom he first banished to Pola, and then caused to be executed: but as yet no proof has been brought to show that he died innocent. His father refused him the title of Augustus, and he was also the son of a repudiated wife; so that hence may have arisen feelings of jealousy against the children of Fausta, his brothers, and he may thus have been drawn into a plot against his father. Yet, even then, his death must be deemed a shocking event. There is another story, which is that Constantine’s wife Fausta was suffocated in a bath by his orders. Against this, Gibbon has raised very weighty objections, as even after Constantine’s death, Fausta was still alive: in the accounts, she is represented as a Phædra. In the meanwhile, Constantine had founded a new Rome in Constantinople, of which the situation is so fine. With his three half brothers, Constantius, Dalmatius, and Hannibalianus, he lived in exemplary harmony. Hannibalianus died without issue; Dalmatius had two sons, Hannibalianus and Dalmatius; Julius Constantius likewise had two, Julian and Gallus: he himself had three sons, Constantine, Constans, and Constantius. He now, towards the end of his life, divided the empire among these three sons and the children of Dalmatius; and he died at Nicomedia, after having completed his darling city of Constantinople, A. D. 337.

THE SUCCESSORS OF CONSTANTINE. JULIAN THE APOSTATE. JOVIAN. VALENTINIAN
I. VALENS, GRATIAN. VALENTINIAN II. THEODOSIUS THE GREAT. MAXIMUS.

It would seem that people are wrong in thinking it strange that Constantine should also have appointed Dalmatius and Hannibalianus. He did it, not because they had any claims; but without doubt that he might be able, if any dissensions should arise between his sons, to throw one weight more into the scale; so that his family might, at all events be kept on the throne. His wish to promote harmony was not, however, fulfilled. The causes of the outbreak are by no means clear, nor do we know how it happened that the provisions of the will were not adhered to: the statements which have been made about it, may have some truth in them, but they sound rather apocryphal. Just as little can we make out how far Constantius was guilty: heathens and orthodox Christians unite in their hatred against him, which is perhaps the reason why he seems to us still blacker than he really was. In short, there broke out a military insurrection at Constantinople; the will of Constantine was declared to be a forgery; the brothers of Constantine, and the two princes Dalmatius and Hannibalianus were killed, and with them the _præfectus prætorio_ Ablavius, and many other followers of Constantine. The division was now made in the manner which we have already seen in the times of Aurelian and Diocletian: Constantine, the eldest brother, who was twenty-one years of age, got the West, and had Gaul, Spain, and Britain; Constans, who was twenty, the _præfectura Italiæ_, and also Illyricum; and Constantius, who was a youth of seventeen, the _præfectura orientis_. Constantius was soon involved in a war with Sapor king of Persia, which lasted with uninterrupted ill success from 337 to 361. Constantine and Constans likewise soon became at feud, as the former demanded from his brother the cession of Africa as a compensation to maintain the balance of power, because Constans had Illyricum and Dalmatia:—it seems that Constantine likewise had Rhætia and Noricum. Constantine (who on coins is called _junior_) burst upon the states of Constans from the Norican frontier; but soon met with a decisive overthrow, and lost his life. Constans now took possession of the West, for which Constantius may have had a slight compensation in Illyricum. Constans enjoyed his triumph for some years, but at last had his reward. He was a worthless prince. Of the three brothers, Constantius seems to have been the most bearable, although he himself also was not good for much: he was entirely under the government of his chamberlains the eunuchs, who, quite in the Persian fashion, held the first place in his court. Constans was a profligate, violent man, and thus he gave rise to much exasperation in Gaul where he resided. In that country lived Magnentius, a general of barbarian origin, altogether rude and illiterate, who very likely could not even read nor write:—such a thing would have been impossible in the second century, and it is a proof of the utter degeneracy of the times, that such ignorant people could become generals. Magnentius raised a rebellion at Autun, on which Constans fled, trying to reach the sea so as to cross over to Africa; but before he was able to embark, he was overtaken and slain at Illiberis (also called Helena) in Roussillon by the horsemen of his foe. Against Magnentius, another general, Vetranio, arose in Illyria; but he sought to connect himself with Constantius, and being welcomed as a friend and enticed into a conference, he had to lay down his diadem at the feet of his ally, who was proclaimed emperor by the soldiers. On this occasion, Constantius did not show himself cruel. He now marched against Magnentius, and near Mursa (which is now Essek in Sclavonia), he won a victory over a superior force: in this battle, he seems to have behaved well. Magnentius then fled to Italy: but every body there zealously espoused the cause of Constantius, and he afterwards lost another battle in Gaul; so that no other choice was left him but to take away his own life. Constantius was now sole ruler again.

In the meanwhile, the affairs of the East had got a great deal worse. Of nine great battles in the Persian war, eight were decidedly unfavourable to the Romans: the night-engagement alone near Singara, was somewhat of a success; but even then their attack upon the camp was likewise a failure. Constantius gave his cousin Gallus the name of Constantius, and the dignity of Cæsar: he may even have thought of adopting the children of his uncle, as he had not any children of his own. Julian and Gallus, the sons of Julius Constans, had by a lucky chance been preserved in the general tumult after Constantine’s death, the former of these being six, and the latter twelve years old at the time of their father’s murder: Constantius’ having no children had saved their lives. They were removed from the court, and kept prisoners in a castle of the old Cappadocian kings near Cæsarea, not being allowed to go out of the bounds of the district; they, however, received a careful education, for which Julian was most happily fitted, but Gallus had no capacity whatever. In this manner they lived, until Constantius (when he marched against Magnentius, an affair which engaged him for two years) sent for Gallus, and must have adopted him. He made him Cæsar, and gave him the command of the East, where Sapor was carrying on the war very sluggishly, having perhaps plenty to do on the borders of India, and on the banks of the Oxus. Gallus made a very bad use of his good luck: he and his wife Constantina, the daughter of the great Constantine, were equally savage and cruel, and the East suffered severely. When Constantius had ended the war in the West, the grievances of the East reached his ears. Gallus had murdered two commissioners of the emperor, who had been sent to watch him: this deserved to be punished. He was summoned to Constantinople without his having any the least foreboding of what awaited him; in Thrace, he was separated from his legions, which in the meanwhile were made to take the oaths to Constantius; then he was arrested, and brought to trial, and, as he was not able to clear himself, executed at Pola, where Crispus also had been put to death.