Emperor were executed as easily "on the banks of the Thames or the Nile, as on those of the Tiber." Roman language, law, and civilisation gradually pervaded the provinces, and individual nationalism was lost in the Roman name. An empire of cities had been constructed, connected by the great roads, all centring in Rome, the arteries along which flowed the blood of the imperial power, whose pulses were felt in the most distant barbaric regions. Interprovin

cial trade, the produce of the Spanish and German mines, commerce with remote countries of Asia, and the compelled industry of a vast slave population, enriched the empire. But this unity of character, though accompanied with refinement and internal peace, levelled beneath a well organized despotism, was destructive of genius and of independent thought; and accordingly the prosperity of the consolidated monarchy is accompanied by the decay of literature and the corruption of taste. Yet this Romanized condition of the European nations, confirmed by the habitude of four centuries, formed a firm basis on which to rear the varied Gothic institutions that were to succeed, and saved mankind from the utter wreck of the social system, amidst the flood of barbaric conquest. No less auxiliary to this result was the universal diffusion of Christianity throughout the east and west. In the second century the "distant isles" of Britain had listened to the disciples of St. John, and almost before that Apostle's hand had placed the seal on the completed revelation, the Gospel of Christ had been preached in every province, and even beyond the limits of the empire. Christianity indeed does not appear conspicuously as an object of general history till it had degenerated from its original simplicity, and much in its corrupted form had been ingrafted on the institutions of the empire; yet still the native force of its civilisation remained even in Europe's gloomiest days, though the "seed was not to be quickened" till it had apparently died, and till centuries had prepared it for a glorious. resurrection.

The tyrants that succeeded Augustus present an appalling contrast to the beneficence of his reign. The Cæsar family ends with Nero, the sixth emperor; and the trembling senate were forced to receive their sovereign from the Prætorian

It will be remembered that the superscription of the cross was in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Greece and Asia retained their own language, and on this fact was partially founded the distinction which separated the empire, and eventually the religion into the forms of Greek and Latin Christianity.

guards, or the legions of Spain, Germany, or the east. The clement rule of Vespasian and Titus gave a respite to the Romans from imperial profligacy and tyranny; and after the death of Domitian, Vespasian's unworthy younger son, the five "good emperors," Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, and the two Antonines,2 illustrated their names by the peace and prosperity of their subjects, and the repulse of frontier barbaric incursions. But from the "golden days” of the Antonines, the seeds of decline germinate rapidly: the purple is again stained with crime: assassination and revolt dethrone and elevate sovereigns, and though a few bright names give the historian a breathing-time of admiration, yet down to Diocletian the general picture is melancholy, and one of its most lamentable features is the repeated persecution of Christianity. In that emperor's reign the duties of a government employed from west to east in the repulse of frontier enemies, were too heavy for the control of a single hand. Diocletian elevated Maximian as his colleague on the throne: the former superintended the east in Nicomedia, the latter, the west in Milan, and Rome ceased to be an imperial residence. Their younger "Cæsars," Constantius Chlorus and Galerius, executed the will of the "Augusti."3

This distri

bution of power, wholesome in itself for the administration of a vast monarchy, was, through the ambition of the Cæsars, the source of civil war. On the resignation of Diocletian and Maximian, the Cæsars became Augusti. Constantine, the son of Constantius Chlorus, on his father's death, marched, at the invitation of the Romans, with the legions of Gaul and Britain, to vindicate his Augustal dignity against Maxentius, the infamous son of Maximian. Maxentius was defeated under the walls of Rome, and drowned in his flight (A.D. 312). Constantine was acknowledged emperor, in conjunction with Licinius, a fortunate soldier, who had risen to the

1 These troops, originally the body-guards of Augustus, were always quartered in Rome, with splendid appointments. They grew in numbers and in insolence till they raised or dethroned emperors at their pleasure.

2 It would be well if, in writing history, the familiar forms of Roman and Greek names were restored to their proper shape but Antony, Horace, Tully, &c., have acquired a prescriptive right, and it seems affectation to write Horatius or Tullius for the poet or the orator. We never write Horace Cocles, or Paul Emilius; and the Emperor August would be intolerably harsh. In French, classical names are sometimes almost irrecognisable, as Denys for Dionysius. Greek names ought also to be written in their Greek forms, as Kimon, Herakles, Odysseus, for Cimon, Hercules, Ulysses. Distinctness of idea would also be promoted by writing the names of Greek deities, Zeus, Poseidon, Pallas, Artemis, instead of Jupiter, Neptune, Minerva, Diana, which belong only to Italian mythology. 3 The higher title of "Augustus" was appropriated by the reigning emperors; that of "Cæsar" was assigned to their chosen emperors-elect.

dignity of Cæsar in the east (315). The divided sovereignty, as usual, soon produced a war; the vanquished Licinius expired the captive of his conqueror, and the empire acknowledged a single head.

The reign of Constantine the Great is characterized by a new organization1 of the empire, and the foundation of a new capital in the east. The city of Byzantium, at the junction. of the Euxine and the Propontis, had been for ages the seat of commerce and prosperity. The Goths, settled in the regions beyond the lower Danube, threatened the north-eastern frontier, and Constantine resolved to erect a seat of government in the vicinity of the impending hostility of Goth and Persian, and at a point on the confines of Asia and Europe, more conveniently central than the distant Rome. In a period marvellously brief, the new capital sprang up, and the cities of the empire were stripped of their ornaments to minister to its transplanted magnificence (329). It has since borne the name of its founder; but its crescent is now the standard of a power and a faith unknown to the eagles of Rome.

The most important in consequences of the measures of Constantine, is his establishment of Christianity, not only as the tolerated, but the recognised religion of the empire. The Christians now organized into a church, with all its machinery of episcopal government, were numerous in the armies and all the offices of state, and powerful from their wealth and influence in the cities. They were still smarting from recent persecution, when Constantine in his march against Maxentius proclaimed his adherence to the faith,2 on the ground either of policy or conviction. The edict of Milan (313) restored religious liberty, but the ceremonies of Paganism, connected with the ordinary working of the government were retained, and did not disappear till the reign of Gratian. Perceiving, as he conceived, the danger

1 The simplicity of the titles of the Republic, and during the reigns of the earlier emperors, had now disappeared. "For the distinctions of personal merit and influence was substituted a severe subordination of rank and office, from the titled slaves on the steps of the throne, to the meanest instruments of arbitrary power." The principal officers of the empire were saluted with-" your Excellency; your Eminence; your sublime and wonderful Magnitude; your illustrious and magnificent Highness." In this "sacred hierarchy" all magistrates were divided into three classes: 1. The Illustrious; 2. The Spectabiles (Respectable): 3. The Clarissimi (Honourable). Patrician was now a personal title, which a barbarian could merit. The titles Count and Duke, so conspicuous in the feudal ages, now appear in the Roman world.

2 The story of his conviction by the vision of a cross in the sky inviting him to conquest is well known. The cross was emblazoned on the sacred Labarum, the standard of the Christian emperors.

R

of an imperium in imperio as the ecclesiastical government might be termed, he linked the establishment of the church closely to the control of the state, a circumstance from which sprung very important results in the ecclesiastical and political history of subsequent ages. The emperor was soon called on to exercise his ecclesiastical authority in the assembly of the First General Council at Nice for the determination of the Arian controversy,2 and the definition of the "Catholic" orthodox faith.

His

Constantine, and some of his successors, though political heads of the church, remained unbaptized, till their deathbeds. warned them. The great and vigorous character of the emperor is darkened in the later portion of his reign by a tyranny to which some of his own family fell victims. death (337) left the empire divided among his three sons. Their discords extinguished his race. The last survivor, his nephew Julian, had unhappily imbibed a hatred of the religion whose chiefs had massacred his family. Secretly educated in Paganism, on the throne he attempted its restoration, but fell in the midst of his design in an expedition against Persia (363). In the reign of Gratian3 (379-383), the symbols of Paganism disappear from the machinery of the state; its adherents remained a despised and persecuted people, till lost amidst the storm of contending Christian sects, and the thunders of barbarian warfare.

The century that remains of the history of western Rome

1 Nicæa, now Isnik, in the N. W. of Asia Minor.

2 Various heresies had agitated the church during the first three centuries. In the beginning of the fourth (319), that of Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria ("the hot-bed of heresy and dissension") denied the divinity of our Saviour and the Holy Ghost. Though condemned by the Nicene council, his opinions were embraced by some succeeding emperors, and by various tribes of barbarians, and caused frequently persecution and desolating wars.

3 From the age of Numa to the reign of Gratian, the Romans preserved the succession of the sacerdotal colleges. Fifteen Pontiffs exercised supreme jurisdiction over all persons and things consecrated to the service of the gods. Fifteen Augurs prescribed the actions of heroes according to the flight of birds. Fifteen keepers (Quindecemviri) of the Sybilline books consulted the history of the future. Six vestals devoted their virginity to the guard of the sacred fire, and of the unknown pledges of the duration of Rome. The Epulos who prepared the temple of the gods; the Flamens of Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus (the deified Romulus), the ministers of the deities who peculiarly watched over the fate of Rome and the universe; the King of the Sacrifices; the confraternities of the Salians, and the Lupercals;-all exercised their functions and practised their rites. The dignity of their sacred character was still protected by the laws of their country; and an ample stipend from the consecrated lands and the public revenue supported the splendour of the priesthood, whose offices were sought by the most illustrious members of the senate." (Abridged from Gibbon xxviii.) All this disappears in the fourth century, and in the beginning of the sixth (516) the very era of Rome (A. U. C.) is superseded after the dissolution of the western empire by that of Christianity. Much however of Pagan ceremonial and practice continued to increase the fast growing corruption of the Romish church.

exhibits the increasing frequency of the irruption of the northern tribes into the empire. The forests of Germany poured over the Rhine and Danube, their various swarms; the Goths crossing Europe from Scandinavia, threatened the very walls of Constantinople; and ultimately sacked Rome itself. The abilities of Theodosius the Great (379-395), the last single emperor of east and west,1 were able merely to stay the flood of calamity. The Huns from the heart of Asia, and new barbarians of nameless origin, continued to occupy province after province. The Roman discipline had been totally disorganized; the effeminate legions had thrown off defensive armour as a burden, and trusted the horse's speed for safety in battle.2 The policy of earlier emperors in bribing, instead of repelling the barbarians from their frontiers had been fatal, and had taught only the secret of their weakness. The expression, "Storehouse of nations," applied to the north, denotes the myriads of the assailants; and "Scourge of God," the epithet of Attila, the Hun, suggests the character of their invasions. The last prince who bore the imperial name in the west was Romulus Augustus, the son of the Patrician Orestes, a Pannonian officer of distinction. He singularly combines in his names those of the founders of the state, and of the empire. He was compelled to abdicate the purple, and to live the pensioner of his conqueror Odoacer, king of the Heruli, who assumed the title of king of Italy (476). The empire and jurisdiction of western Rome was at an end; the more distant east still retained the Roman name for a thousand years under the sceptre of Constantinople.

THE DARK AND MIDDLE AGES.

Historians have remarked that down to the fall of the Western Empire (476), the main stream of history is undivided. Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome, with their developments of theocratic despotism, republican nationalism, and imperial legislative dominion, successively rise and fall. In the fifth century of the Christian era the stream

This was only during the two concluding years of his reign.

2 The increasing number of cavalry in the Roman armies is noticed as one of the causes of the empire's fall.

3 This year corresponds to A. U. C. 1229. It had been remarked as early as the time of Cicero, that the numbers of birds, six and twelve, seen respectively by Remus and Romulus, denoted the duration of governments in Rome. The republic falls under Julius Cæsar, nearly at the conclusion of the first six centuries from the origin of the city, and the empire which he founded terminates shortly after the close of the second six.