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dismissed, and will, therefore, be related in the following chapter.

The Syrian deserts separated the Romans from Arabia, a country over which they never established their authority. The Arabs, however, being divided into petty tribes. that rarely acted in concert, were not deemed formidable enemies; their incursions were annoying rather than dangerous.

Egypt is the last portion of the Roman empire that remains for us to describe: its great fertility, its advantageous situation for commerce, and the merited celebrity of Alexandria as the great mart of civilized Europe, apparently rendered this celebrated country the most valuable of the Roman possessions; but the inconstant character of the Egyptians, insensible to kindness, and only to be won by fear, led to frequent revolts, which were quelled with difficulty, and punished with remorseless severity.

It will be seen from this rapid sketch, that we are about to enter on a history, deficient in that unity agreeable alike to the author and the reader. The causes of the overthrow of the Roman empire were many and various; they operated in different places and at different times; and we must, therefore, be prepared for several digressions, in order that we may trace the several effects of each. The Roman empire was deed, always deficient in a principle of unity: this was early discovered by its rulers, and they tried to supply its place by making the Latin language universal among their subjects. They succeeded in their northern and western provinces, for there, Latin had only to struggle against rude and barbarous dialects; they failed completely in all the countries that had formed a part of the Macedonian empire, because the superiority of the Greek language, for every purpose of civilized life, was unquestionable, and indeed was readily confessed by the Romans themselves. The actual division of the empire into Grecian and Latin states was marked distinctly by

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difference of language long before any meditated a formal partition.

of the emperors had

When Augustus had established the imperial government, he preserved the forms of the republic, and thus rendered his power more dangerous and less suspected. Crimes that the most absolute despot would dread to attempt, may readily be perpetrated under the forms of a free constitution; they shelter the monarch from personal responsibility; they enable him to shift the blame on his senate or his council; and if at any time popular indignation is excited, he may avert its effects by the sacrifice of some of his miserable agents. Had there been no senate, the death of Sejanus would scarcely have saved Tiberius from the consequences of his crimes. Less enlightened emperors did not perceive the advantages to be derived from these shadows of ancient institutions; they trusted exclusively to the standing army, and thus made the soldiers masters of themselves and of the empire. Rome was subjected to a military despotism from the extinction of the race of the Antonines by the death of Commodus (A.D. 193) to the accession of Dioclesian (A.D. 284). The legions engaged in a constant struggle against the barbarians at a distance from the enervating vices of the capital, still preserved a remnant of the ancient Roman character: their nomination of their generals to supreme power was not only a consequence of the unsettled state of the succession, but often a matter of urgent necessity, from their being engaged in wars where the want of a supreme power would have led to defeat, perhaps to ruin. The distinguished generals they elected were in many instances well fitted to conduct the affairs of the empire, but the quick succession of rulers was fatal to the durability of reform. Besides, however pure the intentions of the emperors might be, they were prevented from improving the internal administration, by the necessity of protecting extended frontiers, assailed, as we have seen, by formidable enemies in every

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

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direction; and they had also to defend themselves against competitors, whose claims wanted only the idle formality of being acknowledged by the senate to be as valid as their

own.

Dioclesian introduced an entirely new system which was completed by Constantine the Great. He substituted the despotism of the court for that of the camp, and rendered the sovereign absolute in form as well as in fact. His partition of the empire with a monarch of equal power, named an Augustus, and with two subordinate rulers called Cæsars, was a revolution that changed all the relations between the governors and the governed. The rulers of the empire being almost constantly absent from Rome were freed from the moral restraint, however slight, which the authority of the senate and the name of the republic had imposed upon their predecessors. Rome ceased to be the

chief object of importance to those who aimed at empire, and the prætorian guards, who had previously bestowed sovereignty at their pleasure, were at once stripped of all political importance. It is true that the provinces had now to support four rulers, four courts, and four armies; but it is equally true that this division of power protracted the fate of the empire, whose dangers were too great to be provided against by a single mind.

The religious state of the empire next requires our attention; the entire edifice of Paganism was shattered in pieces, and Christianity was about to be erected on its ruins. As a system of religious belief influencing human action, Paganism had long since lost its influence, even over the vulgar; an unmeaning ritual was still preserved, and hereditary observances practised, but for them no one could assign a reason, and few troubled themselves to inquire. The philosophers of the age rejected religion altogether, or, as at Alexandria, were engaged in forming "cunningly devised fables," derived from all the superstitions of the known world. The popu

4

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POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CONDITION

lation of Alexandria in the third and fourth centuries consisted of the most motley miscellany of nations, religions, and sects, that had ever been brought together in one city. Its philosophers united the gloomy philosophy of India with the imaginative fictions of Greece, and formed from this incongruous mixture speculative systems that long maintained a fatal influence over the human mind. In ancient Rome every act of government was connected with religion, and hence Augustus took care to unite the imperial with the pontifical authority. The claim to divine honours made by many of the emperors, gave them a strong interest in the maintenance of polytheism, it allowed them to demand obedience as gods upon earth, and even those who made no such impious pretence, required that, as pontiffs, they should be regarded as representatives of Deity, and that the military oaths should be sworn by their name. It is erroneously imagined that such madmen only as Nero and Caligula indulged the passion of deification; Marcus Aurelius, whom it has pleased some authors to describe as the model of sovereigns and the hero of philosophers, enrolled his infamous wife, Faustina, in the number of the goddesses. Though Paganism was thus a system of weakness, because of acknowledged absurdity, the most influential persons in the empire were interested in its support; it gave a sanction to the authority of the rulers, it enabled the philosophers to gratify their pride by triumphing over the vulgar; for it must not be forgotten, that an essential part of ancient philosophy was contempt and hatred towards "the profane rabble," as the lower orders were insolently designated. Christianity was the philosophy of the people; in the words of its Divine Author, "to the poor the Gospel is preached;" addressing itself to a class despised by philosophic pride, and neglected by pontifical luxury, it had taken a fast hold in the empire before its progress awakened the jealousy of the ruling powers. Cruel persecu

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tions only increased its strength, for every martyrdom was a fresh testimony to its eternal truth, a testimony more intelligible and more conclusive than all the eloquent reasoning of the schools. Its progress had been so rapid, that when Constantine declared it to be the religion of the empire, he ratified rather than established its supremacy. Morals under the empire were at the lowest ebb; vice and criminality had attained such a height that no one dreamed of concealing his iniquity. Profligacies that will not bear description were unblushingly exhibited in the face of day; at such a time the virtues for which the early Christians were distinguished, produced a very powerful effect their blameless lives, amid surrounding corruption, proved the superiority of the faith they professed, and extorted approbation even from their most virulent enemies.

:

In an empire that possessed neither aristocracy nor commons, there is little to be said respecting the legislative or executive power; both centre in the will of the sovereign. There is, however, reason to believe that the commercial regulations of the empire were formed on wise principles, taxes were generally moderate, and both internal and foreign commerce, in spite of the incessant wars, were in a flourishing condition. A change for the worse commenced after the partitions introduced by Diocletian ; the number of dependents on the courts became extravagantly great, transit-duties and customs were levied for their support, to the great injury of trade, and the weight of taxation was increased as the power to bear it was diminished.

Rome had long been declining in political importance; its citizens were a medley from every quarter of the empire, and in the age of Constantine we vainly look in the lists of its magistracy for the names that were familiar to us in the early period of its history. The shows of the amphitheatre alone engaged the attention of a city that had once regulated the affairs of the civilized world, and so far were