The following is in Eugene's own words:
The following is a compilation of my favourite passages, almost one thousand in total, from Gibbon's masterpiece. They were chosen not because of the importance of the histories which they relate, but because of the literary wit and beauty that they contain. Gibbon once accused compilers of having "darkened the face of learning" (see below: Chapter 2, last entry). I only hope that Dr. Zimmermann and myself are not two of them!
In addition to the passages below, there are also two in-depth studies of Gibbon and his History which I have written and posted on the Internet:
--- Eugene Ho ---p. 1. The principal conquests of the Romans were achieved under the republic; and the emperors, for the most part, were satisfied with preserving those dominions which had been acquired by the policy of the senate, the active emulation of the consuls, and the martial enthusiasm of the people.
p. 3. Engaged in the pursuit of pleasure, or in the exercise of tyranny, the first Caesars seldom showed themselves to the armies, or to the provinces.
p. 3. After a war of about forty years, undertaken by the most stupid, maintained by the most dissolute, and terminated by the most timid of all the emperors, the far greater part of the island submitted to the Roman yoke.
p. 6. [A]s long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters.
p. 9. In the purer ages of the commonwealth, the use of arms was reserved for those ranks of citizens who had a country to love, a property to defend, and some share in enacting those laws, which it was their interest, as well as duty, to maintain. But in proportion as the public freedom was lost in extent of conquest, war was gradually improved into an art, and degraded into a trade.
p. 17. We have attempted to explain the spirit which moderated, and the strength which supported, the power of Hadrian and the Antonines.
p. 18. Of the natives barbarians, the Celtiberians were the most powerful, as the Cantabrians and Asturians proved the most obstinate. Confident in the strength of their mountains, they were the last who submitted to the arms of Rome, and the first who threw off the yoke of the Arabs.
p. 24. It is easier to deplore the fate, than to describe the actual condition, of Corsica.
p. 28. Rome, the capital of a great monarchy, was incessantly filled with subjects and strangers from every part of the world, who all introduced and enjoyed the favourite superstitions of their native country.
p. 32. The natives of Italy, allured by pleasure or by interest, hastened to enjoy the advantages of victory.
p. 33. This obvious difference marked the two portions of the empire with a distinction of colours, which, though it was in some degree concealed during the meridian splendour of prosperity, became gradually more visible as the shades of night descended upon the Roman world.
p. 34. Among the innumerable monuments of architecture constructed by the Romans, how many have escaped the notice of history, how few have resisted the ravages of time and barbarism!
p. 48. In their dress, their table, their houses, and their furniture, the favourites of fortune united every refinement of conveniency, of elegance, and of splendour, whatever could soothe their pride or gratify their sensuality. Such refinements, under the odious name of luxury, have been severely arraigned by the moralists of every age; and it might perhaps be more conducive to the virtue, as well as happiness of mankind, if all possessed the necessities, and none of the superfluities, of life.
p. 51. The authority of Plato and Aristotle, of Zeno and Epicurus, still reigned in the schools; and their systems, transmitted with blind deference from one generation of disciples to another, precluded every generous attempt to exercise the powers, or enlarge the limits, of the human mind.
p. 52. The name of Poet was almost forgotten; that of Orator was usurped by the sophists. A cloud of critics, of compilers, of commentators, darkened the face of learning, and the decline of genius was soon followed by the corruption of taste.
p. 54. Augustus pronounced a studied oration, which displayed his patriotism, and disguised his ambition.
p. 56. When Pompey commanded in the east, he rewarded his soldiers and allies, dethroned princes, divided kingdoms, founded colonies, and distributed the treasures of Mithridates.
p. 69. History...is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortune of mankind.
p. 70. If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus. The vast extent of the Roman empire was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of virtue and wisdom. The armies were restrained by the firm but gentle hand of four successive emperors, whose characters and authority commanded involuntary respect.
p. 70. The military force was a blind and irresistible instrument of oppression; and the corruption of Roman manners would always supply flatterers eager to applaud, and ministers prepared to serve, the fear or the avarice, the lust or the cruelty, of their masters.
p. 72. The minds of the Romans were very differently prepared for slavery. Oppressed beneath the weight of their own corruption and of miliary violence, they for a long while preserved the sentiments, or at least the ideas, of their free-born ancestors.
p. 78. The governors of the provinces, who had long been the spectators, and perhaps the partners, of his [Maternus, a private soldier] depredations, were, at length, roused from their supine indolence by the threatening commands of the emperor.
p. 79. Avarice was the reigning passion of his [Cleander's] soul, and the great principle of his administration.
p. 81. Nero himself excelled, or affected to excel, in the elegant arts of music and poetry.
p. 83. [W]hen he [Commodus] exercised his skill in the school of the gladiators, or his own palace, his wretched antagonists were frequently honoured with a mortal wound from the hand of Commodus, and obliged to seal their flattery with their blood.
p. 95. He [Albinus] courted power by nobler, or, at least by more specious, arts.
p. 98. The enemy was now within two hundred and fifty miles of Rome; and every moment diminished the narrow span of life and empire allotted to Julian.
p. 101. Severus pronounced his funeral oration with studied eloquence, inward satisfaction, and well-acted sorrow.
p. 104. [T]he Romans, after the fall of the republic, combated only for the choice of masters. Under the standard of a popular candidate for empire, a few enlisted from affection, some from fear, many from interest, none from principle.
p. 109. Till the reign of Severus, the virtue and even the good sense of the emperors had been distinguished by their zeal or affected reverence for the senate.
p. 122. As soon as the character of Macrinus was surveyed by the sharp eye of discontent, some vices, and many defects, were easily discovered. The choice of his ministers was in many instances justly censured, and the dissatisfied people, with their usual candour, accused at once his indolent tameness and his excessive severity.
p. 122. His [Macrinus'] rash ambition had climbed a height where it was difficult to stand with firmness, and impossible to fall without instant destruction.
p. 123. [The empress Julia] was doomed to weep over the death of one of her sons, and over the life of the other.
p. 128. The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn in others the same disorders which they allow in themselves; and can readily discover some nice difference of age, character, or station, to justify the partial distinction.
p. 144. Inattentive, or rather averse, to the welfare of his people, he [Caracalla] found himself under the necessity of gratifying the insatiate avarice, which he had excited in the army.
p. 148. Though a stranger to real wisdom, he [Maximin] was not devoid of a selfish cunning, which showed him that the emperor had lost the affection of the army, and taught him to improve their discontent to his own advantage.
p. 151. As long as the cruelty of Maximin was confined to the illustrious senators, or even to the bold adventurers, who in the court or army expose themselves to the caprice of fortune, the body of the people viewed their sufferings with indifference, or perhaps with pleasure.
p. 153. Twenty-two acknowledged concubines, and a library of sixty-two thousand volumes, attested the variety of his [Gordianus II's] inclinations, and from the productions which he left behind him, it appears that the former as well as the latter were designed for use rather than ostentation.
p. 154. During the emperor's absence, a detachment of the Praetorian guards remained at Rome, to protect, or rather to command, the capital.
p. 164. The fear of a rescue from the faithful Germans of the Imperial Guards shortened their tortures; and their bodies, mangled with a thousand wounds, were left exposed to the insults or to the pity of the populace.
p. 164. As [Gordianus III] was only nineteen years of age at the time of his death, the history of his life, were it known to us with greater accuracy than it really is, would contain little more than the account of his education, and the conduct of the ministers, who by turns abused or guided the simplicity of his inexperienced youth.
p. 176. The majesty of Ormusd, who was jealous of a rival, was seconded by the despotism of Artaxerxes, who could not suffer a rebel...
p. 181. Our suspicions are confirmed by the authority of a contemporary historian, who mentions the virtues of Alexander with respect, and his faults with candour.
p. 182. [A]fter consuming in Mesopotamia an inactive and inglorious summer, [Alexander Severus] led back to Antioch an army diminished by sickness, and provoked by disappointment.
p. 189. The last century [ie., the 17th Century] abounded with antiquarians of profound learning and easy faith...
p. 193. The sounds that summoned the German to arms... aroused him from his uncomfortable lethargy, gave him an active pursuit, and, by strong exercise of the body, and violent emotions of the mind, restored him to a more lively sense of his existence. In the dull intervals of peace, these barbarians were immoderately addicted to deep gaming and excessive drinking; both of which, by different means, the one by inflaming their passions, the other by extinguishing their reason, alike relieved them from the pain of thinking.
p. 199. Female courage, however it may be raised by fanaticism, or confirmed by habit, can be only a faint and imperfect imitation of the manly valour that distinguishes the age or country in which it may be found.
p. 206. Wars, and the administration of public affairs, are the principal subjects of history.
p. 208. [Decius] conducted or followed his army to the confines of Italy...
p. 221. Perhaps the merit of [Valerian] was inadequate to his reputation; perhaps his abilities, or at least his spirit, were affected by the languor and coldness of old age.
p. 227. [T]o the south of that inland sea were situated the soft and wealthy provinces of Asia Minor, which possessed all that could attract, and nothing which could resist, a barbarian conqueror.
p. 235. By his weak or wicked counsels, the Imperial army was betrayed into a situation where valour and military skill were equally unavailing.
p. 237. The voice of history... is often little more than the organ of hatred or flattery.
p. 238. In every art that he [Gallienus] attempted his lively genius enabled him to succeed; and as his genius was destitute of judgment, he attempted every art except the important ones of war and government.
p. 238. [Gallienus] was a master of several curious but useless sciences, a ready orator and elegant poet, a skilful gardener, an excellent cook, and most contemptible prince.
p. 240. In times of confusion, every active genius finds the place assigned to him by Nature: in a general state of war, military merit is the road to glory and to greatness.
p. 241. The rapid and perpetual transitions from the cottage to the throne and from the throne to the grave, might have amused an indifferent philosopher; were it possible for a philosopher to remain indifferent amidst the general calamities of human kind.
p. 251. Several large bodies of barbarians, covering their retreat with a moveable fortification of waggons, retired, or rather escaped, from the field of slaughter.
p. 258. Fear has been the original parent of superstition, and every new calamity urges trembling mortals to deprecate the wrath of their invisible enemies.
p. 259. The extent of the new walls, erected by Aurelian, and finished in the reign of Probus, was magnified by popular estimation to near fifty, but is reduced by accurate measurement to about twenty-one miles.
p. 263. Invincible in war, [Odenathus] was there cut off by domestic treason, and his favourite amusement of hunting was the cause, or at least the occasion, of his death.
p. 265. [Zenobia] retired within the walls of her capital, made every preparation for a vigorous resistance, and declared, with the intrepidity of a heroin, that the last moment of her reign and of her life should be the same.
p. 283. [Probus'] dutiful address to the senate displayed the sentiments, or at least the language, of a Roman patriot.
p. 286. The fame of warriors is built on the destruction of human kind.
p. 288. The infrequency of marriage, and the ruin of agriculture, affected the principles of population, and not only destroyed the strength of the present, but intercepted the hope of future generations.
p. 291. [I]n the prosecution of a favourite scheme, the best of men, satisfied with the rectitude of their intentions, are subject to forget the bounds of moderation.
p. 296. In the Gallic war [Carinus] discovered some degree of personal courage; but from the moment of his arrival at Rome he abandoned himself to the luxury of the capital, and to the abuse of his fortune. He was soft, yet cruel; devoted to pleasure, but destitute of taste.
p. 296. [Carinus] beheld with inveterate hatred all those who might remember his former obscurity, or censure his present conduct.
p. 302. [Carinus'] personal vices overbalanced every advantage of birth and situation. The most faithful servants of the father [ie., the emperor Carus] despised the incapacity, and dreaded the cruel arrogance of the son.... A tribune, whose wife he had seduced, seized the opportunity of revenge, and by a single blow extinguished civil discord in the blood of the adulterer.
p. 309. When Britain was thus dismembered from the empire its importance was sensibly felt and its loss sincerely lamented. The Romans celebrated, and perhaps magnified, the extent of that noble island, provided on every side with convenient harbours.
p. 311. [Carausius] was murdered by his first minister Allectus, and the assassin succeeded to his power and to his danger. But he possessed not equal abilities either to exercise the one or to repel the other.
p. 313. Whenever the provinces were invaded, Diocletian conducted himself with that calm dignity which he always affected or possessed.
p. 316. The darkness of the middle ages ensured a favourable reception to every tale of wonder, and the revival of learning gave new vigour to hope, and suggested more specious arts of deception.
p. 331. The pride, or rather the policy, of Diocletian, engaged that artful prince to introduce the stately magnificence of the court of Persia.
p. 336. It is seldom that minds long exercised in business have formed any habits of conversing with themselves, and in the loss of power they principally regret the want of occupation.
p. 354. Maximian either craftily invented, or hastily credited, a vain report of the death of Constantine.
p. 356. This tax was so extremely oppressive, either in itself or in the mode of collecting it that, whilst the revenue was increased by extortion, it was diminished by despair.
p. 356. The soldiers were the only order of men whom [Maxentius] appeared to respect, or studied to please.... A prince, of such a character, alike incapable of governing either in peace or in war, might purchase the support, but he could never obtain the esteem, of the army.
p. 363. Concealing, or at least attempting to conceal, from the public knowledge the misfortunes of his arms, he indulged himself in a vain confidence, which deferred the remedies of the approaching evil without deferring the evil itself.
p. 364. The guardians of [the Sibylline books] were as well versed in the arts of this world as they were ignorant of the secrets of fate; and they returned [Maxentius] a very prudent answer, which might adapt itself to the event, and secure their reputation, whatever should be the chance of arms.
p. 374. Two laws... may be selected from the crowd; the one for its importance, the other for its singularity; the former for its remarkable benevolence, the latter for its excessive severity.
p. 375. The less opulent or less industrious part of mankind, instead of rejoicing in an increase of family, deemed it an act of paternal tenderness to release their children from the impending miseries of a life which they themselves were unable to support.
p. 380. The troops of Licinius, though they were lately raised, ill armed, and worse disciplined, made head against their conquerors with fruitless but desperate valour, till a total defeat, and the slaughter of five-and-twenty thousand men, irretrievably determined the fate of their leader.
p. 385. The current of zeal and devotion, as it was contracted into a narrow channel, ran with strength, and sometimes with the fury, of a torrent.
p. 388. It became the most sacred duty of a new convert to diffuse among his friends and relations the inestimable blessing which he had received, and to warn them against a refusal that would be severely punished as a criminal disobedience to the will of a benevolent but all-powerful Deity.
p. 395. The philosopher, who considered the system of polytheism as a composition of human fraud and error, could disguise a smile of contempt under the mask of devotion, without apprehending that either the mockery or the compliance would expose him to the resentment of any invisible, or, as he conceived them, imaginary power.
p. 396. The innumerable deities and rites of polytheism were closely interwoven with every circumstance of business or pleasure, of public or of private life; and it seemed impossible to escape the observance of them, without, at the same time, renouncing the commerce of mankind, and all the offices and amusements of society.
p. 398. [T]here were a few sages of Greece and Rome who had conceived a more exalted, and, in some respects, a juster idea of human nature, though it must be confessed that, in the sublime inquiry, their reason had been often guided by their imagination, and that their imagination had been prompted by their vanity. When they viewed with complacency the extent of their own mental powers, when they exercised the various faculties of memory, of fancy, and of judgment, in the most profound speculations or the most important labours, and when they reflected on the desire of fame, which transported them into future ages, far beyond the bounds of death and of the grave, they were unwilling to confound themselves with the beasts of the field, or to suppose that a being, for whose dignity they entertained the most sincere admiration, could be limited to a spot of earth, and to a few years of duration.
p. 402. The revolution of seventeen centuries has instructed us not to press too closely the mysterious language of prophecy and revelation; but as long as, for wise purposes, this error was permitted to subsist in the church, it was productive of the most salutary effects on the faith and practice of Christians, who lived in the awful expectation of that moment when the globe itself, and all the various race of mankind, should tremble at the appearance of their divine Judge.
p. 406. The condemnation of the wisest and most virtuous of the Pagans, on account of their ignorance or disbelief of the divine truth, seems to offend the reason and the humanity of the present age. But the primitive church, whose faith was of a much firmer consistence, delivered over, without hesitation, to eternal torture the far greater part of the human species.
p. 409. The duty of an historian does not call upon him to interpose his private judgment in this nice and important controversy; but he ought not to dissemble the difficulty of adopting such a theory as may reconcile the interest of religion with that of reason, of making a proper application of that theory, and of defining with precision the limits of that happy period, exempt from error and from deceit, to which we might be disposed to extend the gift of supernatural powers.
p. 409. And yet, since every friend to revelation is persuaded of the reality, and every reasonable man is convinced of the cessation, of miraculous powers, it is evident that there must have been some period in which they were either suddenly or gradually withdrawn from the Christian church.
p. 410. Accustomed long since to observe and to respect the invariable order of Nature, our reason, or at least our imagination, is not sufficiently prepared to sustain the visible action of the Deity.
p. 410. The most curious, or the most credulous, among the Pagans were often persuaded to enter into a society which asserted an actual claim of miraculous powers. The primitive Christians perpetually trod on mystic ground, and their minds were exercised by the habits of believing the most extraordinary events. They felt, or they fancied, that on every side they were incessantly assaulted by daemons, comforted by visions, instructed by prophecy, and surprisingly delivered from danger, sickness, and from death itself, by the supplications of the church.
p. 411. The desire of perfection became the ruling passion of [the Christians'] soul; and it is well known that, while reason embraces a cold mediocrity, our passions hurry us with rapid violence over the space which lies between the most opposite extremes.
p. 413. There are two very natural propensities which we may distinguish in the most virtuous and liberal dispositions, the love of pleasure and the love of action.... To the love of pleasure we may... ascribe most of the agreeable, to the love of action we may attribute most of the useful and respectable, qualifications.... The insensible and inactive disposition... would be rejected, by the common consent of mankind, as utterly incapable of procuring any happiness to the individual, or any public benefit to the world. But it was not in this world that the primitive Christians were desirous of making themselves either agreeable or useful.
p. 413. Very different was the reasoning of our devout predecessors; vainly aspiring to imitate the perfection of angels, they disdained, or they affected to disdain, every earthly and corporeal delight.
p. 413. Gay apparel, magnificent houses, and elegant furniture were supposed to unite the double guilt of pride and of sensuality: a simple and mortified appearance was more suitable to the Christian who was certain of his sins and doubtful of his salvation.
p. 415. Since desire was imputed as a crime, and marriage was tolerated as a defect, it was consistent with the same principles to consider a state of celibacy as the nearest approach to the Divine perfection.
p. 417. The ecclesiastical governors of the Christians were taught to unite the wisdom of the serpent with the innocence of the dove; but as the former was refined, so the latter was insensibly corrupted, by the habits of government.
p. 423. The progress of the ecclesiastical authority gave birth to the memorable distinction of the laity and of the clergy, which had been unknown to the Greeks and Romans.... a celebrated order of men which has furnished the most important, though not always the most edifying, subjects for modern history.
p. 425. In the time of the emperor Decius it was the opinion of the magistrates that the Christians of Rome were possessed of very considerable wealth, that vessels of gold and silver were used in their religious worship, and that many among their proselytes had sold their lands and houses to increase the public riches of the sect, at the expense, indeed, of their unfortunate children, who found themselves beggars because their parents had been saints.
p. 431. We have already seen how various, how loose, and how uncertain were the religious sentiments of Polytheists. They were abandoned almost without control, to the natural workings of a superstitious fancy. The accidental circumstances of their life and situation determined the object as well as the degree of their devotion; and as long as their adoration was successfully prostituted to a thousand deities, it was scarcely possible that their hearts could be susceptible of a very sincere or lively passion for any of them.
p. 431. On public occasions the philosophic part of mankind affected to treat with respect and decency the religious institutions of their country, but their secret contempt penetrated through the thin and awkward disguise; and even the people, when they discovered that their deities were rejected and derided by those whose rank or understanding they were accustomed to reverence, were filled with doubts and apprehensions concerning the truth of those doctrines to which they had yielded the most implicit belief.
p. 431. A state of scepticism and suspense may amuse a few inquisitive minds. But the practice of superstition is so congenial to the multitude that, if they are forcibly awakened, they still regret the loss of their pleasing vision.
p. 432. So urgent on the vulgar is the necessity of believing, that the fall of any system of mythology will most probably be succeeded by the introduction of some other mode of superstition.
p. 436. A perpetual stream of strangers and provincials flowed into the capacious bosom of Rome. Whatever was strange or odious, whoever was guilty or suspected, might hope, in the obscurity of that immense capital, to elude the vigilance of the law. In such a various conflux of nations, every teacher, either of truth or of falsehood, every founder, whether of a virtuous or a criminal association, might easily multiply his disciples or accomplices.
p. 440. Such is the constitution of civil society, that, whilst a few persons are distinguished by riches, by honours, and by knowledge, the body of the people is condemned to obscurity, ignorance, and poverty. The Christian religion, which addressed itself to the whole human race, must consequently collect a far greater number of proselytes from the lower than from the superior ranks of life.
p. 440. Whilst [the early Christian preachers] cautiously avoid the dangerous encounter of philosophers, they mingle with the rude and illiterate crowd, and insinuate themselves into those minds whom their age, their sex, or their education has the best disposed to receive the impression of superstitious terrors.
p. 443. The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead were raised, daemons were expelled, and the laws of Nature were frequently suspended for the benefit of the church.
p. 469. During the same period of persecution, the zealous, the eloquent, the ambitious Cyprian governed the church, not only of Carthage, but even of Africa. He possessed every quality which could engage the reverence of the faithful, or provoke the suspicion and resentment of the Pagan magistrates.
p. 475. But although devotion had raised, and eloquence continued to inflame, this fever of the mind, it insensibly gave way to the more natural hopes and fears of the human heart, to the love of life, the apprehension of pain, and the horror of dissolution.
p. 478. During the whole course of his reign Marcus despised the Christians as a philosopher, and punished them as a sovereign.
p. 490. After taking such effectual measures to abolish the worship and to dissolve the government of the Christians, it was thought necessary to subject to the most intolerable hardships the condition of those perverse individuals who should reject the religion of nature, or Rome, and of their ancestors.
p. 499. Cruelty and superstition were the ruling passions of the soul of Maximin. The former suggested the means, the latter pointed out the objects, of persecution. The emperor was devoted to the worship of the gods, to the study of magic, and to the belief of oracles.
p. 502. The most extravagant legends, as they conduced to the honour of the church, were applauded by the credulous multitude, countenanced by the power of the clergy, and attested by the suspicious evidence of ecclesiastical history.
p. 504. [E]ven admitting, without hesitation or inquiry, all that history has recorded, or devotion has feigned, on the subject of martyrdoms, it must still be acknowledged that the Christians, in the course of their intestine dissensions, have inflicted far greater severities on each other than they had experienced from the zeal of the infidels.
p. 504. The church of Rome defended by violence the empire which she had acquired by fraud.
p. 522. By a philosophic observer the system of the Roman government might have been mistaken for a splendid theatre filled with players of every character and degree, who repeated the language, and imitated the passions, of their original model.
p. 524. The public festival was continued during several days in all the principal cities; in Rome, from custom, in Constantinople, from imitation; in Carthage, Antioch, and Alexandria, from the love of pleasure and the superfluity of wealth.
p. 525. As soon as the consuls had discharged these customary duties, they were at liberty to retire into the shade of private life, and to enjoy during the remainder of the year the undisturbed contemplation of their own greatness.
p. 531. As the spirit of jealousy and ostentation prevailed in the councils of the emperors, they proceeded with anxious diligence to divide the substance and to multiply the titles of power.
p. 536. The honour of a liberal profession has indeed been vindicated by ancient and modern advocates, who have filled the most important stations with pure integrity and consummate wisdom; but in the decline of Roman jurisprudence the ordinary promotion of lawyers was pregnant with mischief and disgrace. The noble art, which had once been preserved as the sacred inheritance of the patricians, was fallen into the hands of freedmen and plebeians, who, with cunning rather than with skill, exercised a sordid and pernicious trade.
p. 536. Careless of fame and of justice, they are described for the most part as ignorant and rapacious guides, who conducted their clients through a maze of expense, of delay, and of disappointment; from whence, after a tedious series of years, they were at length dismissed, when their patience and fortune was almost exhausted.
p. 542. The introduction of barbarians into the Roman armies became every day more universal, more necessary, and more fatal.
p. 561. Even those who censured the propriety of his measures were compelled to acknowledge that he possessed magnanimity to conceive, and patience to execute, the most arduous designs, without being checked either by the prejudices of education or by the clamours of the multitude.
p. 566. Under such painful circumstances the royal youth might not always be able to compose his behaviour or suppress his discontent; and we may be assured that he was encompassed by a train of indiscreet or perfidious followers, who assiduously studied to inflame, and who were perhaps instructed to betray, the unguarded warmth of his resentment.
p. 571. The most celebrated professors of the Christian faith, of the Grecian philosophy, and of the Roman jurisprudence, were invited by the liberality of the emperor, who reserved for himself the important task of instructing the royal youths in the science of government and the knowledge of mankind.
p. 579. These alliances, which the policy of Constantine... had formed between the several branches of the Imperial house, served only to convince mankind that these princes were as cold to the endearments of conjugal affection, as they were insensible to the ties of consanguinity and the moving entreaties of youth and innocence.
p. 592. But as [Zosimus] neither shows himself a soldier nor a politician, his narrative must be weighed with attention, and received with caution.
p. 601. [Constantia] retained the vanity, though she had renounced the gentleness of her sex...
p. 605. The emperor was easily convinced that his own safety was incompatible with the life of his cousin: the sentence of death was signed, despatched, and executed; and the nephew of Constantine, with his hands tied behind his back, was beheaded in prison, like the vilest malefactor.
p. 606. Far from the tumult of arms and the treachery of courts, he spent six months amidst the groves of the Academy, in a free intercourse with the philosophers of the age, who studied to cultivate the genius, to encourage the vanity, and to inflame the devotion of their royal pupil.
p. 610. [Sylvanus] assumed the purple at his headquarters of Cologne, and his active powers appeared to menace Italy with an invasion and Milan with a siege.
p. 623. Sabinian, a wealthy and subtle veteran, who had attained the infirmities, without acquiring the experience, of age.
p. 632. A tender regard of the peace and happiness of his subjects was the ruling principle which directed, or seemed to direct, the administration of Julian.
p. 638. It was enacted that the places of worship, and public lands, which had been confiscated, should be restored to the church, without dispute, without delay, and without expense...
p. 639. [T]he counsels of princes are more frequently influenced by views of temporal advantages than by considerations of abstract and speculative truth.
p. 639. But the operation of the wisest laws is imperfect and precarious. They seldom inspire virtue, they cannot always restrain vice. Their power is insufficient to prohibit all that they condemn, nor can they always punish the actions which they prohibit.
p. 648. The philosopher, who with calm suspicion examines the dreams and omens, the miracles and prodigies, of profane or even of ecclesiastical history, will probably conclude that, if the eyes of the spectators have sometimes been deceived by fraud, the understanding of the readers has much more frequently been insulted by fiction.
p. 649. The vision of Constantine maintained an honourable place in the legend of superstition till the bold and sagacious spirit of criticism presumed to depreciate the triumph, and to arraign the truth, of the first Christian emperor.
p. 653. Among the proselytes of Christianity there were many who judged it imprudent to precipitate a salutary rite who could not be repeated; to throw away an inestimable privilege which could never be recovered. By the delay of their baptism they could venture freely to indulge their passions in the enjoyment of this world, while they still retained in their own hands the means of a sure and easy absolution.
p. 654. Instead of asserting his just superiority above the imperfect heroism and profane philosophy of Trajan and the Antonines, the mature age of Constantine forfeited the reputation which he had acquired in his youth. As he gradually advanced in the knowledge of truth, he proportionably declined in the practice of virtue...
p. 654. Future tyrants were encouraged to believe that the innocent blood which they might shed in a long reign would instantly be washed away in the waters of regeneration; and the abuse of religion dangerously undermined the foundations of moral virtue.
p. 663. An absolute monarch, who is rich without patrimony, may be charitable without merit; and Constantine too easily believed that he should purchase the favour of Heaven if he maintained the idle at the expense of the industrious, and distributed among the saints the wealth of the republic.
p. 664. The form of these religious edifices was simple and oblong, though they might sometimes swell into the shape of a dome, and sometimes branch into the figure of a cross.
p. 669. The preachers recommended the practice of the social duties; but they exalted the perfection of monastic virtue, which is painful to the individual, and useless to mankind.
p. 669. Those modest orators acknowledged that, as they were destitute of the gift of miracles, they endeavoured to acquire the arts of eloquence.
p. 675. The schism of the Donatists was confined to Africa; the more diffusive mischief of the Trinitarian controversy successively penetrated into every part of the Christian world. The former was an accident quarrel, occasioned by the abuse of freedom; the latter was a high and mysterious argument, derived from the abuse of philosophy.
p. 679. The respectable name of Plato was used by the orthodox, and abused by the heretics, as the common support of truth and error...
p. 680. We may strive to abstract the notions of time, of space, and of matter, which so closely adhere to all the perceptions of our experimental knowledge. But as soon as we presume to reason of infinite substance, of spiritual generation, as often as we deduce any positive conclusion from a negative idea, we are involved in darkness, perplexity, and inevitable contradiction.
p. 680. A chosen society of philosophers, men of a liberal education and curious disposition, might silently meditate, and temperately discuss in the gardens of Athens or the library of Alexandria, the abstruse questions of metaphysical science. The lofty speculations, which neither convinced the understanding nor agitated the passions of the Platonists themselves, were carelessly overlooked by the idle, the busy, and even the studious part of mankind.
p. 681. These speculations, instead of being treated as the amusement of a vacant hour, became the most serious business of the present, and the most useful preparation for a future, life. A theology which it was incumbent to believe, which it was impious to doubt, and which it might be dangerous, and even fatal, to mistake, became the familiar topic of private meditation and popular discourse.
p. 684. The advocates of a system which seemed to establish three independent Deities attempted to preserve the unity of the First Cause, so conspicuous in the design and order of the world, by the perpetual concord of their administration and the essential agreement of their will.
p. 687. [A]s the degrees of theological hatred depend on the spirit of the war rather than on the importance of the controversy, the heretics who degraded were treated with more severity than those who annihilated the person of the Son.
p. 688. It is amusing enough to delineate the form, and to trace the vegetation, of a singular plant; but the tedious detail of leaves without flowers, and of branches without fruit, would soon exhaust the patience and disappoint the curiosity of the laborious student.
p. 690. The Greek word which was chosen to express this mysterious resemblance bears so close an affinity to the orthodox symbol, that the profane of every age have derided the furious contests which the difference of a single diphthong excited between the Homoousians and the Homoiousians.
p. 690. [I]n the midst of their fierce contentions, they easily forgot the doubt which is recommended by philosophy, and the submission which is enjoined by religion.
p. 692. But as those princes presumed to extend their despotism over the faith, as well as over the lives and fortunes of their subjects, the weight of their suffrage sometimes inclined the ecclesiastical balance: and the prerogatives of the King of Heaven were settled, or changed, or modified, in the cabinet of an earthly monarch.
p. 692. [Constantine] laments that the Christian people, who had the same God, the same religion, and the same worship, should be divided by such inconsiderable distinctions; and he seriously recommends to the clergy of Alexandria the example of the Greek philosophers, who could maintain their arguments without losing their temper, and assert their freedom without violating their friendship.
p. 696. The mind of Constantius, which could neither be moderated by reason nor fixed by faith, was blindly impelled to either side of the dark and empty abyss, by his horror of the opposite extreme; he alternately embraced and condemned the sentiments, he successively banished and recalled the leaders, of the Arian and Semi-Arian factions.
p. 696. During the season of public business or festivity, he employed whole days, and even nights, in selecting the words, and weighing the syllables, which composed his fluctuating creeds.
p. 697. We have seldom an opportunity of observing, either in active or speculative life, what effect may be produced, or what obstacles may be surmounted, by the force of a single mind, when it is inflexibly applied to the pursuit of a single object.
p. 698. Amidst the storms of persecution, the archbishop of Alexandria [Athanasius] was patient of labour, jealous of fame, careless of safety; and although his mind was tainted by the contagion of fanaticism, Athanasius displayed a superiority of character and abilities which would have qualified him, far better than the degenerate sons of Constantine, for the government of a great monarchy.
p. 699. The archbishop of Alexandria [Athanasius] was capable of distinguishing how far he might boldly command, and where he must dexterously insinuate; how long he might contend with power, and when he must withdraw from persecution; and while he directed the thunders of the church against heresy and rebellion, he could assume, in the bosom of his own party, the flexible and indulgent temper of a prudent leader.
p. 699. [Athanasius] appeared with easy and respectful firmness in the courts of princes; and in various turns of his prosperous and adverse fortune he never lost the confidence of his friends, or the esteem of his enemies.
p. 703. The council of Sardica reveals the first symptoms of discord and schism between the Greek and Latin churches, which were separated by the accidental difference of faith and the permanent distinction of language.
p. 714. The persecution of Athanasius and of so many respectable bishops, who suffered for the truth of their opinions, or at least for the integrity of their conscience, was a just subject of indignation and discontent to all Christians, except those who were blindly devoted to the Arian faction.
p. 722. In the actions of these desperate enthusiasts, who were admired by one party as the martyrs of God, and abhorred by the other as the victims of Satan, an impartial philosopher may discover the influence and the last abuse of that inflexible spirit which was originally derived from the character and principals of the Jewish nation.
p. 721. The captives died, without a murmur, either by the sword, the axe, or the fire; and the measures of retaliation were multiplied in a rapid proportion, which aggravated the horrors of rebellion and excluded the hope of mutual forgiveness.
p. 722. The simple narrative of the intestine divisions which distracted the peace and dishonoured the triumph of the church, will confirm the remark of a Pagan historian, and justify the complaint of a venerable bishop.
p. 723. [W]hile Constantine designed to ruin the foundations, he seemed to reform the abuses, of the ancient religion.
p. 723. The Imperial city of Constantinople was, in some measure, raised at the expense, and was adorned with the spoils, of the opulent temples of Greece and Asia...
p. 725. In the East as well as in the West, in cities as well as in the country, a great number of temples were respected, or at least were spared; and the devout multitude still enjoyed the luxury of sacrifices, of festivals, and of processions, by the permission, or by the connivance, of the civil government.
p. 726. The superstition of the senator and of the peasant, of the poet and the philosopher, was derived from very different causes, but they met with equal devotion in the temples of the gods.
p. 737. The Romans, as ignorant as their brethren of the real date of [Jesus'] birth, fixed the solemn festival to the 25th of December, the Brumalia, or winter solstice, when the Pagans annually celebrated the birth of the sun.
p. 738. In the execution of a daring enterprise [Julian] availed himself of every precaution, as far as prudence could suggest; and where prudence could no longer accompany his steps, he trusted the event to valour and to fortune.
p. 742. By [Julian's] order, Jovinus led back a part of the army into Italy; and the siege of Aquileia was formed with diligence and prosecuted with vigour.
p. 743. Without shedding the blood of his fellow-citizens, [Julian] escaped the dangers of a doubtful conflict, and acquired the advantages of a complete victory.
p. 744. Philosophy had instructed Julian to compare the advantages of action and retirement; but the elevation of his birth and the accidents of his life never allowed him the freedom of choice.
p. 746. [A]fter bestowing a careless glance on five or six of the races, [Julian] hastily withdrew with the impatience of a philosopher, who considered every moment as lost that was not devoted to the advantage of the public or the improvement of his own mind.
p. 755. The acute penetration of [Julian's] mind was agreeably occupied in detecting and defeating the chicanery of the advocates, who laboured to disguise the truth of facts and to pervert the sense of the laws.
p. 756. After an interval of one hundred and twenty years from the death of Alexander Severus, the Romans beheld an emperor who made no distinction between his duties and his pleasures, who laboured to relieve the distress and to revive the spirit of his subjects, and who endeavoured always to connect authority with merit, and happiness with virtue.
p. 758. The dull and obstinate understanding of Gallus embraced, with implicit zeal, the doctrines of Christianity, which never influenced his conduct, or moderated his passions.
p. 762. As long as our immortal souls are confined in a mortal prison, it is our interest, as well as our duty, to solicit the favour, and to deprecate the wrath, of the powers of heaven; whose pride is gratified by the devotion of mankind, and whose grosser parts may be supposed to derive some nourishment from the fumes of sacrifice.
p. 767. Religious obstinacy is hardened and exasperated by oppression; and, as soon as the persecution subsides, those who have yielded are restored as penitents, and those who have resisted are honoured as saints and martyrs.
p. 768. Instead of maintaining the lofty state of a monarch, distinguished by the splendour of his purple, and encompassed by the golden shields of his guards, Julian solicited, with respectful eagerness, the meanest offices which contributed to the worship of the gods.
p. 774. In a public epistle to the nation or community of the Jews dispersed through the provinces, [Julian] pities their misfortunes, condemns their oppressors, praises their constancy, declares himself their gracious protector, and expresses a pious hope that, after his return from the Persian war, he may be permitted to pay his grateful vows to the Almighty in his holy city of Jerusalem.
p. 781. Such authority should satisfy a believing, and must astonish an incredulous, mind. Yet a philosopher may still require the original evidence of impartial and intelligent spectators.
p. 782. [Julian] affected to pity the unhappy Christians who were mistaken in the most important object of their lives; but his pity was degraded by contempt, his contempt was embittered by hatred.
p. 782. [Julian] declared that, by the folly of the Galilaeans, whom he describes as a sect of fanatics, contemptible to men and odious to the gods, the empire had been reduced to the brink of destruction...
p. 784. Under the administration of their enemies, the Christians had much to suffer, and more to apprehend.
p. 789. The return of the saint was a triumph; and the triumph was an insult on the religion of the emperor, who exerted his pride to dissemble his resentment.
p. 790. From the love, or the ostentation, of learning, [George of Cappadocia] collected a valuable library of history, rhetoric, philosophy, and theology.
p. 799. Julian was persuaded to fix, till the ensuing spring, his residence at Antioch, among a people maliciously disposed to deride the haste and censure the delays of their sovereign.
p. 800. Fashion was the only law, pleasure the only pursuit, and the splendour of dress and furniture was the only distinction of the citizens of Antioch. The arts of luxury were honoured, the serious and manly virtues were the subject of ridicule, and the contempt for female modesty and reverent age announced the universal corruption of the capital of the East.
p. 800. The rustic manners of a prince who disdained such glory, and was insensible of such happiness, soon disgusted the delicacy of his subjects, and the effeminate Orientals could neither imitate nor admire the severe simplicity which Julian always maintained and sometimes affected.
p. 802. [T]he spirit of Antioch was manifested by the connivance of the magistrates and the applause of the multitude. The disciple of Socrates [ie., Julian] was too deeply affected by these popular insults; but the monarch, endowed with quick sensibility and possessed of absolute power, refused his passions the gratification of revenge.
p. 803. The sophists of every age, despising or affecting to despise the accidental distinctions of birth and fortune, reserve their esteem for the superior qualities of the mind, with which they themselves are so plentifully endowed.
p. 803. Julian... was deeply flattered by the praise, the admonition, the freedom, and the envy of an independent philosopher [ie., Libanius], who refused his favours, loved his person, celebrated his fame, and protected his memory.
p. 808. The broad channel of the Euphrates was crowded by a fleet of eleven hundred ships, destined to attend the motions and to satisfy the wants of the Roman armies.
p. 809. Hormisdas at first excited the compassion, and at length acquired the esteem, of his new masters...
p. 809. [T]he ranks, from a motive either of use or ostentation, were formed in such open order that the whole line of march extended almost ten miles.
p. 810. The inhabitants of the open towns, unable to resist and unwilling to yield, fled with precipitation, and their houses, filled with spoil and provisions, were occupied by the soldiers of Julian, who massacred, without remorse and without punishment, some defenceless women.
p. 815. When the Romans marched through the flat and flooded country, their sovereign [ie., Julian], on foot, at the head of his legions, shared their fatigues and animated their diligence.
p. 821. But we may rest assured, from the love of glory, and contempt of danger, which formed the character of Julian, that he was not discouraged by any trivial or imaginary obstacles.
p. 825. The Persians repeatedly charged with fury; they were repeatedly repulsed with firmness.
p. 829. [A]nd if [Julian] entertained any serious thoughts of investing with the purple the most worthy among the Romans, he was diverted from his resolution by the difficulty of the choice, the jealousy of power, the fear of ingratitude, and the natural presumption of health, of youth, and of prosperity.
p. 833. The crafty Persian [ie., Sapor] delayed, under various pretences, the conclusion of the agreement; started difficulties, required explanations, suggested expedients, receded from his concessions, increased his demands, and wasted four days in the arts of negotiation...
p. 839. Such imprudent declarations were eagerly adopted by the malice or credulity of their adversaries, who darkly insinuated or confidently asserted that the governors of the church had instigated and directed the fanaticism of a domestic assassin.
p. 840. In the exercise of his uncommon talents [Julian] often descended below the majesty of his rank. Alexander was transformed into Diogenes the philosopher was degraded into a priest. The purity of his virtue was sullied by excessive vanity; his superstition disturbed the peace and endangered the safety of a mighty empire...
p. 842. As soon as [Athanasius] had gained the confidence and secured the faith of the Christian emperor, he returned in triumph to his diocese, and continued, with mature counsels and undiminished vigour, to direct, ten years longer, the ecclesiastical government of Alexandria, Egypt, and the catholic church.
p. 851. [The people] despised the character of Valens, which was rude without vigour, and feeble without mildness.
p. 857. After [Valentinian] became master of the world, he unfortunately forgot that, where no resistance can be made, no courage can be exerted; and instead of consulting the dictates of reason and magnanimity, he indulged the furious emotions of his temper, at a time when they were disgraceful to himself, and fatal to the defenceless objects of his displeasure.
p. 860. The government of the Earth claimed [Valentinian's] vigilance, and satisfied his ambition; and while he remembered that he was the disciple of the church, he never forgot that he was the sovereign of the clergy.
p. 865. [M]any of those devout females had embraced the doctrines of Christianity, not only with the cold assent of the understanding, but with the warmth of affection, and perhaps with the eagerness of fashion.
p. 865. By [some monks'] contempt of the world, they insensibly acquired its most desirable advantages...
p. 865. If the ecclesiastics were checked in the pursuit of personal emolument, they would exert a more laudable industry to increase the wealth of the church; and dignify their covetousness with the specious names of piety and patriotism.
p. 869. The bloody and obstinate conflict lasted a whole summer's day, with equal valour and with alternate success.
p. 869. Withicab, the son of Vadamair, a German prince, of a weak and sickly constitution, but of a daring and formidable spirit.
p. 870. Every step which [the Roman troops] gained increased their ardour, and abated the resistance of the enemy...
p. 874. A military confederation was gradually moulded into a national body by the gentle operation of marriage and consanguinity; and the adjacent tribes, who solicited the alliance, accepted the name and laws, of the Saxons.
p. 874. In the course of their slow and distant navigations they must always have been exposed to the danger, and very frequently to the misfortune, of shipwreck...
p. 875. The fabulous colonies of Egyptians and Trojans, of Scandinavians and Spaniards, which flattered the pride and amused the credulity of our rude ancestors, have insensibly vanished in the light of science and philosophy.
p. 877. The vicinity of the Hebrides, so profusely scattered along the western coast of Scotland, tempted their curiosity and improved their skill; and they acquired, by slow degrees, the art, or rather the habit, of managing their boats in a tempestuous sea, and of steering their nocturnal course by the light of the well-known stars.
p. 877. On this slight foundation a huge superstructure of fable was gradually reared by the bards and the monks; two orders of men who equally abused the privilege of fiction.
p. 878. The sums of gold and silver which had been painfully collected, or liberally transmitted, for the payment of the troops, were intercepted by the avarice of the commanders...
p. 878. The oppression of the good and the impunity of the wicked equally contributed to diffuse through the island a spirit of discontent and revolt; and every ambitious subject, every desperate exile, might entertain a reasonable hope of subverting the weak and distracted government of Britain.
p. 879. Lord Lyttelton has circumstantially related..., and Sir David Dalrymple has slightly mentioned..., a barbarous inroad of the Scots...
p. 881. The prince who refuses to be the judge, instructs his people to consider him as the accomplice of his ministers.
p. 881. The wisdom of the imperial council was deceived by artifice, and their honest indignation was cooled by delay.
p. 882. Romanus, elated by impunity and irritated by resistance, was still continued in the military command, till the Africans were provoked, by his avarice, to join the rebellious standard of Firmus, the Moor.
p. 883. Theodosius imitated the example and obtained the success of his predecessor Metellus.
p. 884. Africa had been lost by the vices of Romanus; it was restored by the virtues of Theodosius...
p. 884. Valentinian no longer reigned; and the death of Theodosius, as well as the impunity of Romanus, may justly be imputed to the arts of the ministers who abused the confidence and deceived the inexperienced youth of his sons.
p. 887. Since the conversion of the Armenians and Iberians, those nations considered the Christians as the favourites, and the Magians as the adversaries, of the Supreme Being; the influence of the clergy over a superstitious people was uniformly exerted in the cause of Rome...
p. 890. During a peaceful interval of thirty years, the Romans secured their frontiers, and the Goths extended their dominions.
p. 890. The independent tribes were persuaded, or compelled, to acknowledge the king of the Ostrogoths as the sovereign of the Gothic nation...
p. 891. [T]he assistance of [the Heruli's] light infantry was eagerly solicited, and highly esteemed, in all the wars of the barbarians.
p. 891. Those distant inhabitants of the Baltic coast were supported by the labours of agriculture, enriched by the trade of amber, and consecrated by the peculiar worship of the Mother of the Gods.
p. 891. [Hermanic's] dominions, which extended from the Danube to the Baltic, included the native seats, and the recent acquisition, of the Goths; and he reigned over the greatest part of Germany and Scythia with the authority of a conqueror, and sometimes with the cruelty of a tyrant.
p. 892. [T]he provinces of Thrace groaned under the weight of the barbarians, who displayed the insolence of masters, and the licentiousness of enemies.
p. 892. A chain of posts and fortifications, skilfully disposed by Valens, or the generals of Valens, resisted their march, prevented their retreat, and intercepted their subsistence.
p. 895. The obstinacy with which [the Maesian and Pannonian bands] disputed the vain honours of rank and precedency was the cause of their destruction, and, while they acted with separate forces and divided councils, they were surprised and slaughtered by the active vigour of the Sarmatian horse.
p. 896. The severe condemnation of the murder of Gabinus was the only measure which could restore the confidence of the Germans, and vindicate the honour of the Roman name.
p. 896. The extreme devastation and promiscuous massacre of a savage war were justified in the eyes of the emperor, and perhaps in those of the world, by the cruelty of retaliation; and such was the discipline of the Romans, and the consternation of the enemy, that Valentinian repassed the Danube without the loss of a single man.
p. 897. [The ambassadors of the Quadi] approached the [Roman] throne with bended bodies and dejected countenances...
p. 901. The different characters that mark the civilised nations of the globe may be ascribed to the use and the abuse of reason, which so variously shapes and so artificially composes the manners and opinions of an European or a Chinese.
p. 901. In every age the immense plains of Scythia or Tartary have been inhabited by vagrant tribes of hunters and shepherds, whose indolence refuses to cultivate the earth, and whose restless spirit disdains the confinement of a sedentary life.
p. 903. The active cavalry of Scythia is always followed, in their most distant and rapid incursions, by an adequate number of spare horses, who may be occasionally used either to redouble the speed or to satisfy the hunger of the barbarians.
p. 903. But his extraordinary abstinence, which the Stoic would approve and the hermit might envy, is commonly succeeded by the most voracious indulgence of appetite. The wines of a happier climate are the most grateful present or the most valuable commodity that can be offered to the Tartars...
p. 904. The thirst of rapine, the fear or the resentment of injury, the impatience of servitude, have, in every age, been sufficient causes to urge the tribes of Scythia boldly to advance into some unknown countries, where they might hope to find a more plentiful subsistence, or a less formidable enemy.
p. 906. The weak were desirous of support, and the strong were ambitious of dominion...
p. 908. The victor, enriched by the tribute and fortified by the arms of dependent kings, has spread his conquests over Europe or Asia.
p. 910. In the eyes of the Greeks and Persians, the real geography of Scythia was bounded, on the east, by the mountains of Imaus or Caf; and their distant prospect of the extreme and inaccessible parts of Asia was clouded by ignorance, or perplexed by fiction.
p. 912. On the side of the north, the ocean was assigned as the limit of the power of the Huns. Without enemies to resist their progress, or witnesses to contradict their vanity, they might securely achieve a real, or imaginary, conquest of the frozen regions of Siberia.
p. 914. [T]he forces of the Huns were not inferior to those of the Moguls, or of the Mantcheoux; and their ambition might entertain the most sanguine hopes of success. But their pride was humbled, and their progress was checked, by the arms and policy of Vouti, the fifth [sic.] emperor of the powerful dynasty of the Han.
p. 915. Intimidated by the arms, or allured by the promises, of Vouti and his successors, the most considerable tribes, both of the East and of the West, disclaimed the authority of the Tanjou.
p. 918. [T]he flight of the tribes of Scythia would inevitably tend to increase the strength or to contract the territories of the Huns. The harsh and obscure appellations of those tribes would offend the ear, without informing the understanding, of the reader...
p. 918. The Huns... boldly advanced to invade the country of the Alani, a pastoral people, who occupied, or wasted, an extensive tract of the deserts of Scythia.
p. 919. On the banks of the Tanais the military power of the Huns and the Alani encountered each other with equal valour, but with unequal success.
p. 920. [A]s [the Huns] were almost destitute of beards, they never enjoyed either the manly graces of youth or the venerable aspect of age.
p. 923. The liberality of the emperor [Valens] was accompanied, however, with two harsh and vigorous conditions, which prudence might justify on the side of the Romans, but which distress alone could extort from the indignant Goths.
p. 924. [S]uch were the timid councils of the reign of Valens, that the brave officers who had served their country in the execution of their duty were punished by the loss of their employments, and narrowly escaped the loss of their heads.
p. 927. [A]s [Lupicinus] was already inflamed by wine and oppressed by sleep, he issued a rash command, that their death should be revenged by the massacre of the guards of Fritigern and Alavivus.
p. 928. The weak and guilty Lupicinus, who had dared to provoke, who had neglected to destroy, and who still presumed to despise his formidable enemy, marched against the Goths, at the head of such a military force as could be collected on this sudden emergency.
p. 928. As [the barbarians] had been deprived by the ministers of the emperor of the common benefits of nature and the fair intercourse of social life, they retaliated the injustice on the subjects of the empire...
p. 930. The imprudence of Valens and his ministers had introduced into the heart of the empire a nation of enemies; but the Visigoths might even yet have been reconciled by the manly confession of past errors and the sincere performance of former engagements.
p. 930. [T]he immediate conduct of the Gothic war was intrusted... to...two generals who indulged themselves in a very false and favourable opinion of their own abilities.
p. 930. [T]he barbarians, secure within the vast circle of the enclosure, enjoyed the fruits of their valour and the spoils of the province. In the midst of riotous intemperance, the watchful Fritigern observed the motions and penetrated the designs of the Romans.
p. 932. [T]he diligence of Saturninus, the master-general of the cavalry, was employed to improve the strength and to contract the extent of the Roman fortifications. His labours were interrupted by the alarming intelligence that new swarms of barbarians had passed the unguarded Danube, either to support the cause or to imitate the example of Fritigern.
p. 932. The sagacious Fritigern had successfully appealed to the passions as well as to the interest of his barbarian allies; and the love of rapine and the hatred of Rome seconded, or even prevented, the eloquence of his ambassadors.
p. 933. The loose subordination and extensive possessions of the Huns and the Alani delayed the conquests and distracted the councils of that victorious people.
p. 933. The Sarmatians, who could never forgive the successor of Valentinian, enjoyed and increased the general confusion; and a seasonable irruption of the Alemanni into the provinces of Gaul engaged the attention and diverted the forces of the emperor of the West.
p. 934. After this signal victory, which secured the peace of Gaul and asserted the honour of the Roman arms, the emperor Gratian appeared to proceed without delay on his Eastern expedition...
p. 934. The subjects of the empire, who had so often experienced that the Alemanni could neither be subdued by arms nor restrained by treaties, might not promise themselves any solid or lasting tranquillity...
p. 943. [The emperor] Gratian was too late to assist, he was too weak to revenge, his unfortunate colleague [Valens].
p. 948. [T]he effects which were produced by the battle of Hadrianople on the minds of the barbarians and of the Romans, extended the victory of the former, and the defeat of the latter, far beyond the limits of a single day.
p. 949. As long as the superior genius of Fritigern preserved the union and directed the motions of the barbarians, their power was not inadequate to the conquest of the empire.
p. 949. [The barbarians'] mischievous disposition was shown in the destruction of every object which they wanted strength to remove, or taste to enjoy...
p. 950. In the hands of a skilful politician the most different means may be successfully applied to the same ends; and the peace of the empire, which had been forwarded by the divisions, was accomplished by the re-union of the Gothic nation.
p. 953. The original treaty, which fixed the settlement of the Goths, ascertained their privileges, and stipulated their obligations, would illustrate the history of Theodosius and his successors.
p. 954. Notwithstanding these specious arguments and these sanguine expectations, it was apparent to every discerning eye that the Goths would long remain the enemies, and might soon become the conquerors, of the Roman empire.
p. 954. During the civil war against Maximus a great number of Gothic deserters retired into the morasses of Macedonia, wasted the adjacent provinces, and obliged the intrepid monarch to expose his person and exert his power to suppress the rising flame of rebellion.
p. 955. The Goths... were directed by the authority of Fravita, a valiant and honourable youth, distinguished above the rest of his countrymen by the politeness of his manners, the liberality of his sentiments, and the mild virtues of social life. But the more numerous faction adhered to the fierce and faithless Priulf, who inflamed the passions and asserted the independence of his warlike followers.
p. 7. Among the benefactors of the church, the fame of Constantine has been rivalled by the glory of Theodosius. If Constantine had the advantage of erecting the standard of the cross, the emulation of his successor assumed the merit of subduing the Arian heresy, and of abolishing the worship of idols in the Roman world.
p. 9. Two natives of Cappadocia, Basil and Gregory Nazianzen, were distinguished above all their contemporaries by the rare union of profane eloquence and of orthodox piety.
p. 11. But [Gregory Nazianzen's] fatigues were rewarded by the daily increase of his fame and his congregation; and he enjoyed the pleasure of observing that the greater part of his numerous audience retired from his sermons satisfied with the eloquence of the preacher, or dissatisfied with the manifold imperfections of their faith and practice.
p. 12. ...[T]he angels who protected the catholic cause were only visible to the eyes of faith...
p. 13. ...[W]e are always prone to impute our own sentiments and passions to the Deity...
p. 14. In an age when the ecclesiastics had scandalously degenerated from the model of apostolical purity, the most worthless and corrupt were always the most eager to frequent and disturb the episcopal assemblies.
p. 16. The heretical teachers, who usurped the sacred titles of Bishops or Presbyters, were not only excluded from the privileges and emoluments so liberally granted to the orthodox clergy, but they were exposed to the heavy penalties of exile and confiscation, if they presumed to preach the doctrine, or to practise the rites, of their accursed sects.
p. 19. The cruelty of Ithacius, who beheld the tortures, and solicited the death of the heretics, provoked the just indignation of mankind...
p. 20. The clergy and people of Milan were attached to their archbishop [ie., Ambrose] and he deserved the esteem, without soliciting the favour, or apprehending the displeasure, of his feeble sovereigns.
p. 29. The virtuous mind of Theodosius was often relaxed by indolence, and it was sometimes inflamed by passion.... [A]s soon as the design was accomplished, or the danger was surmounted, the hero sunk into inglorious repose, and, forgetful that the time of a prince is the property of his people, resigned himself to the enjoyment of the innocent but trifling pleasures of a luxurious court.... But the painful virtue which claims the merit of victory is exposed to the danger of defeat; and the reign of a wise and merciful prince was polluted by an act of cruelty which would stain the annals of Nero or Domitian.
p. 32. [Theodosius'] commissioners then proceeded to inquire into the guilt of individuals of those who had perpetrated, and of those who had not prevented, the destruction of the sacred statues.
p. 33. [Theodosius] confessed that, if the exercise of justice is the most important duty, the indulgence of mercy is the most exquisite pleasure, of a sovereign.
p. 33. The sedition of Thessalonica is ascribed to a more shameful cause and was productive of much more dreadful consequences.
p. 34. [W]hile the father hesitated with equal tenderness, while he was doubtful to choose, and unwilling to condemn, the soldiers determined his suspense by plunging their daggers at the same moment into the breasts of the defenceless youths.
p. 37. Theodosius discharged his obligation to the brother, he indulged his conjugal tenderness to the sister, of Valentinian [II].
p. 38. [Valentinian II's] zeal of the faith of Nice [Nicaea], and his filial reverence of the character and authority of Ambrose, disposed the catholics to entertain the most favourable opinion of the virtues of the young emperor of the West.
p. 39. [Valentinian II] secretly invited the archbishop of Milan to undertake the office of a mediator, as the pledge of his sincerity and the guardian of his safety.
p. 41. The industry of the two master-generals, Stilicho and Timasius, was directed to recruit the numbers and to revive the discipline of the Roman legions.
p. 45. The complaints of contemporary writers, who deplore the increase of luxury and depravation of manners, are commonly expressive of their peculiar temper and situation.
p. 45. A long period of calamity or decay must have checked the industry and diminished the wealth of the people; and their profuse luxury must have been the result of that indolent despair which enjoys the present hour and declines the thoughts of futurity.
p. 45. The uncertain condition of their property discouraged the subjects of Theodosius from engaging in those useful and laborious undertakings which require an immediate expense, and promise a slow and distant advantage.
p. 45. The relaxation of discipline and the disuse of exercise rendered the soldiers less able and less willing to support the fatigues of the service...
p. 46. As the use of the shield is incompatible with that of the bow, [the soldiers] reluctantly marched into the field, condemned to suffer either the pain of wounds or the ignominy of flight, and always disposed to prefer the more shameful alternative.
p. 46. The cavalry of the Goths, the Huns, and the Alani, had felt the benefits and adopted the use of defensive armour...
p. 47. The laws of Moses and the examples of Jewish history were hastily, perhaps erroneously, applied by the clergy to the mind and universal reign of Christianity.
p. 49. The altar of Victory was again restored by Julian, tolerated by Valentinian, and once more banished from the senate by the zeal of Gratian.
p. 49. Four respectable deputations were successively voted to the Imperial court, to represent the grievances of the priesthood and the senate, and to solicit the restoration of the altar of Victory.
p. 50. The great and incomprehensible secret of the universe eludes the inquiry of man. Where reason cannot instruct, custom may be permitted to guide; and every nation seems to consult the dictates of prudence, by a faithful attachment to those rites and opinions which have received the sanction of ages.
p. 53. The pious labour, which had been suspended near twenty years since the death of Constantius, was vigorously resumed, and finally accomplished, by the zeal of Theodosius.
p. 54. Many of those temples were the most splendid and beautiful monuments of Grecian architecture; and the emperor himself [Theodosius] was interested not to deface the splendour of his own cities, or to diminish the value of his own possessions. Those stately edifices might be suffered to remain, as so many lasting trophies of the victory of Christ.
p. 60. The popular modes of religion, that propose any visible and material objects of worship, have the advantage of adapting and familiarising themselves to the senses of mankind: but this advantage is counter-balanced by the various and inevitable accidents to which the faith of the idolater is exposed. It is scarcely possible that, in every disposition of mind, he should preserve his implicit reverence for the idols, or the relics, which the naked eye and the profane hand are unable to distinguish from the most common productions of art or nature; and if, in the hour of danger, their secret and miraculous virtue does not operate for their own preservation, he scorns the vain apologies of his priests, and justly derides the object and the folly of his superstitious attachment.
p. 61. Whatever might be the truth of the facts or the merit of the distinction, these vain pretences were swept away by the last edict of Theodosius, which inflicted a deadly wound on the superstition of the Pagans.
p. 62. The churches were filled with the increasing multitude of these unworthy proselytes, who had conformed, from temporal motives, to the reigning religion; and whilst they devoutly imitated the postures and recited the prayers of the faithful, they satisfied their conscience by the silent and sincere invocation of the gods of antiquity.
p. 63. The Pagans were indulged in the most licentious freedom of speech and writing; the historical and philosophical remains of Eunapius, Zosimus, and the fanatic teachers of the school of Plato, betray the most furious animosity, and contain the sharpest invectives, against the sentiments and conduct of their victorious adversaries.
p. 64. The memory of theological opinions cannot long be preserved without the artificial helps of priests, of temples, and of books.
p. 66. A superstitious practice, which tended to increase the temptation of fraud and credulity, insensibly extinguished the light of history and of reason in the Christian world.
p. 66. Martin of Tours... extorted this confession from the mouth of the dead man. The error is allowed to be natural; the discovery is supposed to be miraculous. Which of the two was likely to happen most frequently?
p. 67. Augustin composed the two-and-twenty books de Civitate Dei in the space of thirteen years, A.D. 413 - 426.... His learning is too often borrowed, and his arguments are too often his own; but the whole work claims the merit of a magnificent design, vigorously, and not unskilfully, executed.
p. 69. The meaner passions of pride, avarice, and revenge, may be deemed unworthy of a celestial breast; yet the saints themselves condescended to testify their grateful approbation of the liberality of their votaries; and the sharpest bolts of punishment were hurled against those impious wretches who violated their magnificent shrines, or disbelieved their supernatural power.
p. 69. Atrocious, indeed, must have been the guilt, and strange would have been the scepticism, of those men, if they had obstinately resisted the proofs of a divine agency, which the elements, the whole range of the animal creation, and even the subtle and invisible operations of the human mind, were compelled to obey.
p. 69. The sublime and simple theology of the primitive Christians was gradually corrupted: and the MONARCHY of heaven, already clouded by metaphysical subtleties, was degraded by the introduction of a popular mythology which tended to restore the reign of polytheism.
p. 70. The same uniform original spirit of superstition might suggest, in the most distant ages and countries, the same methods of deceiving the credulity, and of affecting the senses of mankind: but it must ingenuously be confessed that the ministers of the catholic church imitated the profane model which they were impatient to destroy. The most respectable bishops had persuaded themselves that the ignorant rustics would more cheerfully renounce the superstitions of Paganism if they found some resemblance, some compensation, in the bosom of Christianity. The religion of Constantine achieved, in less than a century, the final conquest of the Roman empire: but the victors themselves were insensibly subdued by the arts of their vanquished rivals.
p. 73. The sacrifice of an hero gratified [Rufinus]; the honours of the consulship elated his vanity...
p. 75. If avarice were not the blindest of the human passions, the motives of Rufinus might excite our curiosity, and we might be tempted to inquire with what view he violated every principle of humanity and justice to accumulate those immense treasures which he could not spend without folly nor possess without danger.
p. 77. But [Rufinus] still possessed the most effectual means of defending his dignity, and perhaps of oppressing his enemies.
p. 78. Stilicho obtained the preference over a crowd of rivals who ambitiously disputed the hand of the princess [Serena], and the favour of her adoptive father [Theodosius].
p. 79. The assurance that the husband of Serena would be faithful to the throne which he was permitted to approach engaged the emperor to exalt the fortunes, and to employ the abilities, of the sagacious and intrepid Stilicho.
p. 80. Two rivals only remained to dispute the claims, and to provoke the vengeance, of Stilicho.
p. 83. [The favourites of Arcadius] incessantly laboured, by dark and treacherous machinations, to deprive [Stilicho] of the esteem of the prince, the respect of the people, and the friendship of the barbarians.
p. 83. At a time when the only hope of delaying the ruin of the Roman name depended on the firm union and reciprocal aid of all the nations to whom it had been gradually communicated, the subjects of Arcadius and Honorius were instructed, by their respective masters, to view each other in a foreign and even hostile light...
p. 83. The natives of Italy affected to despise the servile and effeminate Greeks of Byzantium, who presumed to imitate the dress, and to usurp the dignity, of Roman senators...
p. 88. [The Barbarians'] horses had never been taught to bear the control, or to obey the guidance, of the bridle.
p. 90. His subjects, who attentively studied the character of their young sovereign, discovered that Honorius was without passion, and consequently without talents; and that his feeble and languid disposition was alike incapable of discharging the duties of his rank, or of enjoying the pleasures of his age.
p. 90. [T]he ambitious minister [ie., Stilicho] suffered [Honorius] to attain the age of manhood without attempting to excite his courage or to enlighten his understanding.
p. 90. But the son of Theodosius [ie., Honorius] passed the slumber of his life a captive in his palace, a stranger in his country, and the patient, almost the indifferent, spectator of the ruin of the Western empire, which was repeatedly attacked, and finally subverted, by the arms of the barbarians. In the eventful history of a reign of twenty-eight years, it will seldom be necessary to mention the name of the emperor Honorius.
p. 95. The invasion of the Goths, instead of vindicating the honours, contributed, at least accidentally, to extirpate the last remains, of Paganism; and the mysteries of Ceres, which had subsisted eighteen hundred years, did not survive the destruction of Eleusis and the calamities of Greece.
p. 95. Stilicho, who had not been permitted to repulse, advanced to chastise, the invaders of Greece.
p. 97. At the head of such troops, who might deserve the name and would display the spirit of Romans, [Synesius] animates the son of Theodosius [ie., Arcadius] to encounter a race of barbarians who were destitute of any real courage...
p. 97. The court of Arcadius indulged the zeal, applauded the eloquence, and neglected the advice, of Synesius.
p. 97. Perhaps the pride of the ministers, whose business was seldom interrupted by reflection, might reject, as wild and visionary, every proposal which exceeded the measure of their capacity, and deviated from the forms and precedents of office.
p. 99. The scarcity of facts, and the uncertainty of dates, oppose our attempts to describe the circumstances of the first invasion of Italy by the arms of Alaric.
p. 101. The fortresses of the Rhine were abandoned; and the safety of Gaul was protected only by the faith of the Germans, and the ancient terror of the Roman name.
p. 102. The siege of an obscure place, which contained so rich a prize, and seemed incapable of a long resistance, was instantly formed, and indefatigably pressed, by the king of the Goths [Alaric]...
p. 102. [T]he passage of the Po was an enterprise of much less hazard and difficulty; and the successful action, in which [Stilicho] cut his way through the Gothic camp under the walls of Asta, revived the hopes and vindicated the honour of Rome.
p. 106. Yet the people, and even the clergy, incapable of forming any rational judgment of the business of peace and war, presumed to arraign the policy of Stilicho, who so often vanquished, so often surrounded, and so often dismissed the implacable enemy of the republic.
p. 108. Cicero... faintly censures the abuse, and warmly defends the use, of these sports...
p. 109. The fears of Honorius were not without foundation, nor were his precautions without effect.
p. 112. The correspondence of nations was in that age so imperfect and precarious, that the revolutions of the North might escape the knowledge of the court of Ravenna, till the dark cloud, which was collected along the coast of the Baltic, burst in thunder upon the banks of the Upper Danube.
p. 112. [Stilicho] once more abandoned the provinces, recalled the troops, pressed the new levies, which were rigorously exacted and pusillanimously eluded.
p. 113. The senate and people trembled at [the barbarians'] approach within an hundred and eighty miles of Rome, and anxiously compared the danger which they had escaped with the new perils to which they were exposed.
p. 115. The proud monarch of so many warlike nations [ie., Radagaisus], after the loss of his bravest warriors, was reduced to confide either in the faith of a capitulation, or in the clemency of Stilicho.
p. 116. It is uncertain whether [the hosts] attempted to revenge the death of their general [Radagaisus]; but their irregular fury was soon diverted by the prudence and firmness of Stilicho, who opposed their march and facilitated their retreat, who considered the safety of Rome and Italy as the great object of his care, and who sacrificed with too much indifference the wealth and tranquillity of the distant provinces.
p. 119. If any of the legionaries were permitted to return from the Italian expedition, their faithful report of the court and character of Honorius must have tended to dissolve the bounds of allegiance, and to exasperate the seditious temper of the British army.
p. 119. The spirit of revolt, which had formerly disturbed the age of Gallienus, was revived by the capricious violence of the soldiers; and the unfortunate, perhaps the ambitious, candidates, who were the objects of their choice, were the instruments, and at length the victims, of their passion.
p. 119. [T]he authority of Constantine was less precarious, and his government was more successful, than the transient reigns of Marcus and of Gratian.
p. 122. In the course of this unfortunate expedition, the king of the Goths [ie., Alaric] must indeed have sustained a considerable loss; and his harassed forces required an interval of repose to recruit their numbers and revive their confidence.... He had deserved the esteem, and he soon accepted the friendship, of Stilicho himself.
p. 123. [The senators] loudly declared, in regular speeches or in tumultuary acclamations, that it was unworthy of the majesty of Rome to purchase a precarious and disgraceful truce from a barbarian king...
p. 124. The tumult of virtue and freedom subsided; and the sum of four thousand pounds of gold was granted, under the name of subsidy, to secure the peace of Italy, and to conciliate the friendship of the king of the Goths [Alaric].
p. 126. [Stilicho] instantly summoned, in the camp of Bologna, a council of the confederate leaders who were attached to his service, and would be involved in his ruin.
p. 126. [T]he most distant connection with the master-general of the West [Stilicho], which had so lately been a title to wealth and honours, was studiously denied, and rigorously punished.
p. 127. [The friends of Stilicho] died in silence; their firmness justified the choice, and perhaps absolved the innocence, of their patron; and the despotic power which could take his life without a trial, and stigmatise his memory without a proof, has no jurisdiction over the impartial suffrage of posterity.
p. 127. The son of Stilicho [Eucherius]... was educated in the bosom of Christianity, which his father had uniformly professed and zealously supported.
p. 128. [I]t is the last humiliation of the character of Honorius, that posterity has not condescended to reproach him with his base ingratitude to the guardian of his youth and the support of his empire [ie., Stilicho].
p. 129. It would not be easy to produce a passage that deserves the epithet of sublime or pathetic; to select a verse that melts the heart or enlarges the imagination. We should vainly seek in the poems of Claudian the happy invention and artificial conduct of an interesting fable, or the just and lively representation of the characters and situations of real life.
p. 129. [Claudian] was endowed with the rare and precious talent of raising the meanest, of adoring the most barren, and of diversifying the most similar, topics...
p. 131. By the imprudent conduct of his ministers of Honorius the republic lost the assistance, and deserved the enmity, of thirty thousand of her bravest soldiers; and the weight of that formidable army, which alone might have determined the event of the war, was transferred from the scale of the Romans into that of the Goths.
p. 131. From his camp, on the confines of Italy, Alaric attentively observed the revolutions of the palace, watched the progress of faction and discontent, disguised the hostile aspect of a barbarian invader, and assumed the more popular appearance of the friend and ally of the great Stilicho.
p. 132. The modesty of Alaric was interpreted by the ministers of Ravenna as a sure evidence of his weakness and fear. They disdained either to negotiate a treaty or to assemble an army...
p. 134. The temporal honours which the devout Paula inherited and despised are carefully recapitulated by Jerom, the guide of her conscience and the historian of her life.
p. 135. One hundred and sixty eight years before the Christian era the [Anician] family was ennobled by the praetorship of Anicius, who gloriously terminated the Illyrian war by the conquest of the nation and the captivity of their king.
p. 138. The opulent nobles of an immense capital, who were never excited by the military glory, and seldom engaged in the occupations of civil government, naturally resigned their leisure to the business and amusements of private life.
p. 138. At Rome commerce was always held in contempt; but the senators, from the first age of the republic, increased their patrimony and multiplied their clients by the lucrative practice of usury...
p. 139. The greater part of the nobles, who dissipated their fortunes in profuse luxury, found themselves poor in the midst of wealth, and idle in a constant round of dissipation.
p. 141. But the modern nobles measure their rank and consequence according to the loftiness of their chariots, and the weighty magnificence of their dress. Their long robes of silk and purple float in the wind; and as they are agitated, by art or accident, they occasionally discover the under garments, the rich tunics, embroidered with the figures of various animals.
p. 142. In the exercise of domestic jurisdiction the nobles of Rome express an exquisite sensibility for any personal injury, and a contemptuous indifference for the rest of the human species.
p. 143. Whenever the rich prepare a solemn and popular entertainment, whenever they celebrate with profuse and pernicious luxury their private banquets, the choice of the guests is the subject of anxious deliberation. The modest, the sober, and the learned are seldom preferred; and the nomenclators, who are commonly swayed by interested motives, have the address to insert in the list of invitations the obscure names of the most worthless of mankind. But the frequent and familiar companions of the great are those parasites who practise the most useful of all arts, the art of flattery; who eagerly applaud each word and every action of their immortal patron; gaze with rapture on his marble columns and variegated pavements, and strenuously praise the pomp and elegance which he is taught to consider as a part of his personal merit.
p. 144. The acquisition of knowledge seldom engages the curiosity of the nobles, who abhor the fatigue and disdain the advantages of study...
p. 145. These vices, which degrade the moral character of the Romans, are mixed with a puerile superstition that disgraces their understanding. They listen with confidence to the predictions of haruspices, who pretend to read in the entrails of victims the signs of future greatness and prosperity; and there are many who do not presume either to bathe or to die, or to appear in public, till they have diligently consulted, according to the rules of astrology, the situation of Mercury and the aspect of the moon.
p. 146. The intemperance of the Gauls, the cunning and levity of the Greeks, the savage obstinacy of the Egyptians and Jews, the servile temper of the Asiatics, and the dissolute, effeminate prostitution of the Syrians, were mingled in the various multitude, which, under the proud and false denomination of Romans, presumed to despise their fellow-subject, and even their sovereigns, who dwelt beyond the precincts of the ETERNAL CITY.
p. 146. [T]he successors of Constantine, instead of crushing the last remains of the democracy by the strong arm of military power, embraced the mild policy of Augustus, and studied to relieve the poverty and to amuse the idleness of an innumerable people.
p. 150. The births and deaths of the citizens were duly registered; and if any writer of antiquity had condescended to mention the annual amount, or the common average, we might now produce some satisfactory calculation which would destroy the extravagant assertions of critics, and perhaps confirm the modest and probable conjectures of philosophers.
p. 150. But the loftiness of these buildings, which often consisted of hasty work and insufficient materials, was the cause of frequent and fatal accidents...
p. 153. The food the most repugnant to sense or imagination, the aliments the most unwholesome and pernicious to the constitution, were eagerly devoured, and fiercely disputed, by the rage of hunger.
p. 156. But the hopes of peace were disappointed by the weak obstinacy, or interested views, of the minister Olympius. Without listening to the salutary remonstrances of the senate, he dismissed their ambassadors under the conduct of a military escort, too numerous for a retinue of honour, and too feeble for an army of defence.
p. 159. While the emperor and his court enjoyed with sullen pride the security of the marshes and fortifications of Ravenna, they abandoned Rome, almost without defence, to the resentment of Alaric.
p. 161. Astonished by such examples of domestic treason, Honorius trembled at the approach of every servant, at the arrival of every messenger.
p. 162. The favourable intelligence which was received from Africa suddenly changed the opinions of men and the state of public affairs.
p. 162. The most imprudent measures were adopted, without the knowledge or against the advice of Alaric...
p. 162. [T]he degraded emperor of the Romans [ie., Honorius], desirous of life and insensible of disgrace, implored the permission of following the Gothic camp in the train of a haughty and capricious barbarian.
p. 164. [M]any thousand warriors, more especially the Huns who served under the standard of Alaric, were strangers to the name, or at least to the faith, of Christ, and we may suspect, without any breach of charity or candour, that in the hour of savage licence, when every passion was inflamed and every restraint was removed, the precepts of the Gospel seldom influenced the behaviour of the Gothic Christians.
p. 165. The brutal soldiers satisfied their sensual appetites without consulting either the inclination or the duties of their female captives...
p. 166. There were other losses indeed of a more substantial kind and more general concern.... The most exquisite works of art were roughly handled or wantonly destroyed...
p. 166. At their entrance through the Salarian gate [the Goths] fired the adjacent houses to guide their march and to distract the attention of the citizens...
p. 167. [I]t was not easy to compute the multitudes who, from an honourable station and a prosperous fortune, were suddenly reduced to the miserable condition of captives and exiles.
p. 169. [T]he village of Bethlehem, the solitary residence of St. Jerom and his female converts, was crowded with illustrious beggars, of either sex and every age, who excited the public compassion by the remembrance of their past fortune.
p. 169. There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times.
p. 170. In the beginning of the sixteenth century the manners of Italy exhibited a remarkable scene of the depravity of mankind. They united the sanguinary crimes that prevail in an unsettled state of society, with the polished vices which spring from the abuse of art and luxury; and the loose adventurers, who had violated every prejudice of patriotism and superstition to assault the palace of the Roman pontiff, must deserve to be considered as the most profligate of the Italians.
p. 170. The retreat of the victorious Goths, who evacuated Rome on the sixth day, might be the result of prudence, but it was not surely the effect of fear.
p. 170. The furious spirit of Luther, the effect of temper and enthusiasm, has been forcibly attacked... and feebly defended...
p. 172. Their trembling captives, the sons and daughters of Roman senators, presented, in goblets of gold and gems, large draughts of Falernian wine to the haughty victors, who stretched their huge limbs under the shade of plane-trees, artificially disposed to exclude the scorching rays, and to admit the genial warmth, of the sun.
p. 172. Whether fame, or conquest, or riches were the object of Alaric, he pursued that object with an indefatigable ardour which could neither be quelled by adversity nor satiated by success.
p. 174. The luxury of Italy had been less effectual to soften the temper than to relax the courage of the Goths; and they had imbibed the vices, without imitating the arts and institutions, of civilised society.
p. 175. [T]he splendour of [Placidia's] birth, the bloom of youth, the elegance of manners, and the dexterous insinuations which she condescended to employ, made a deep impression on the mind of Adolphus...
p. 177. Some portion of the Gothic treasures might be the gift of friendship or the tribute of obedience, but the far greater part had been the fruits of war and rapine, the spoils of the empire, and perhaps of Rome.
p. 177. By another law the lands which had been left without inhabitants or cultivation were granted, with some diminution of taxes, to the neighbours who should occupy or the strangers who should solicit them...
p. 178. Heraclian, count of Africa... was tempted in the year of his consulship to assume the character of a rebel and the title of emperor.
p. 179. The usurpation of Constantine, who received the purple from the legions of Britain, had been successful, and seemed to be secure.
p. 182. United by friendship, animated by despair, but at length oppressed by multitudes, this band of heroes deserved the esteem, without exciting the compassion, of their enemies...
p. 184. The consciousness of the guilt, and the thirst of rapine, prompted the mercenary guards of the Pyrenees to desert their station; to invite the arms of the Suevi, the Vandals, and the Alani; and to swell the torrent which was poured with irresistible violence from the frontiers of Gaul to the sea of Africa.
p. 186. The Spanish war was obstinately supported, during three campaigns, with desperate valour and various success; and the martial achievements of Wallia diffused through the empire the superior renown of the Gothic hero.
p. 188. Yet these domestic misfortunes, which are seldom the lot of a vanquished people, had been felt and inflicted by the Romans themselves, not only in the insolence of foreign conquest, but in the madness of civil discord.
p. 189. [T]he barbarians of Gaul, more especially the Goths, repeatedly declared that they were bound to the people by the ties of hospitality, and to the emperor by the duty of allegiance and military service.
p. 189. Afflicted by similar calamities, and actuated by the same spirit, the Armorican provinces (a name which comprehended the maritime countries of Gaul between the Seine and the Loire) resolved to imitate the example of the neighbouring island.
p. 189. The limits of Armorica are defined by two national geographers.... The word had been used in a more extensive, and was afterwards contracted to a much narrower, signification.
p. 191. But the desire of obtaining the advantages, and of escaping the burthens, of political society, is a perpetual and inexhaustible source of discord...
p. 192. In such councils, where the princes and magistrates sat promiscuously with the bishops, the important affairs of the state, as well as of the church, might be freely debated, differences reconciled, alliances formed, contributions imposed, wise resolutions often concerted, and sometimes executed...
p. 192. It is somewhat remarkable, or rather it is extremely natural, that the revolt of Britain and Armorica should have introduced an appearance of liberty into the obedient provinces of Gaul.
p. 192. In a solemn edict, filled with the strongest assurances of that paternal affection which princes so often express, and so seldom feel, the emperor Honorius promulgated his intention of convening an annual assembly of the seven provinces...
p. 194. The palace of Constantinople rivalled, and perhaps excelled, the magnificence of Persia; and the eloquent sermons of St. Chrysostom celebrate, while they condemn, the pompous luxury of the reign of Arcadius.
p. 194. Inaccessible to the menaces of their enemies, and perhaps to the complaints of their people, [the successors of Constantine] received with each wind the tributary productions of every climate; while the impregnable strength of their capital continued for ages to defy the hostile attempts of the barbarians.
p. 195. The subjects who had resigned their will to the absolute commands of a master were equally incapable of guarding their lives and fortunes against the assaults of the barbarians or of defending their reason from the terrors of superstition.
p. 195. It has already been observed that Eutropius, one of the principal eunuchs of the palace of Constantinople, succeeded the haughty minister whose ruin he had accomplished and whose vices he soon imitated.
p. 196. Eutropius was the first of his artificial sex who dared to assume the character of a Roman magistrate and general.... His former habits of life had not introduced him to the study of the laws or the exercises of the field...
p. 198. The eunuch wishes to obliterate by the general disgrace his personal ignominy; and as he has been sold himself, he is desirous of selling the rest of mankind.
p. 200. The public hatred and the despair of individuals continually threatened, or seemed to threaten, the personal safety of Eutropius, as well as of the numerous adherents who were attached to his fortune and had been prompted by his venal favour.
p. 201. "With regard to the sons of the traitors" (continues the emperor [Arcadius]), "although they ought to share the punishment, since they will probably imitate the guilt, of their parents, yet, by the special effect of our Imperial lenity, we grant them their lives.... Stigmatised with hereditary infamy, excluded from the hopes of honours or fortune, let them endure the pangs of poverty and contempt till they shall consider life as a calamity and death as a comfort and relief."
p. 202. The rumour of the success of Tribigild might for some time be suppressed by fear, or disguised by flattery...
p. 202. The approach of danger and the obstinacy of Tribigild, who refused all terms of accommodation, compelled Eutropius to summon a council of war.
p. 202. Leo, who from the bulk of his body and the dulness of his mind was surnamed the Ajax of the East, had deserted his original trade of a woolcomber, to exercise with much less skill and success the military profession...
p. 203. Gainas... skilfully adapted his motions to the wishes of the Ostrogoths, abandoning by his retreat the country which they desired to invade, or facilitating by his approach the desertion of the barbarian auxiliaries.
p. 204. The archbishop [Chrysostom], ascending the pulpit of the cathedral [of Constantinople] that he might be distinctly seen and heard by an innumerable crowd of either sex and of every age, pronounced a seasonable and pathetic discourse on the forgiveness of injuries and the instability of human greatness.
p. 204. [T]he orator [ie., Chrysostom], who was afterwards accused of insulting the misfortunes of Eutropius, laboured to excite the contempt, that he might assuage the fury, of the people.
p. 206. Gainas was either innocent of the design or too confident of his success...
p. 209. [A]s the pyramid rose towards the summit, it insensibly diminished to a point; and the magistrates, the ministers, the favourite eunuchs, the ladies of the court, the empress Eudoxia herself, had a much larger share of guilt to divide among a smaller proportion of criminals.
p. 210. To the voice of persuasion the archbishop [ie., Chrysostom] was obliged to add the terrors of authority; and his ardour in the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction was not always exempt from passion; nor was it always guided by prudence.
p. 210. Conscious of the purity of his intentions, and perhaps of the superiority of his genius, [Chrysostom] extended the jurisdiction of the Imperial City [Constantinople], that he might enlarge the sphere of his pastoral labours...
p. 212. Ignorant, or careless, of the impending danger, Chrysostom indulged his zeal, or perhaps his resentment...
p. 212. A numerous council of the Eastern prelates, who were guided from a distance by the advice of Theophilus, confirmed the validity, without examining the justice, of the former sentence...
p. 218. Pulcheria alone discharged the important task of instructing her brother [ie., Theodosius the Younger] in the arts of government; but her precepts may countenance some suspicion of the extent of her capacity or of the purity of her intentions.
p. 222. From these panegyrics the historians of the age might borrow their extraordinary, and perhaps fabulous, tales; of the proud challenge of a Persian hero, who was entangled by the net, and despatched by the sword, of Areobindus the Goth...
p. 224. The less fortunate nobles, who lamented the loss of their king, and envied the honours of their equals, were provoked to negotiate their peace and pardon at the Persian court...
p. 228. The emperor of the East [ie., Theodosius the Younger] acquired the useful dominion of the rich and maritime province of Dalmatia, and the dangerous sovereignty of Pannonia and Noricum...
p. 228. Placidia envied, but she could not equal, the reputation and virtues of the wife and sister of Theodosius [the Younger]; the elegant genius of Eudocia, the wise and successful policy of Pulcheria.
p. 228. The Count de Buat... has established the reality, explained the motives, and traced the consequences, of this remarkable cession.
p. 230. [T]his memorable defeat, which has been represented as the punishment, was most probably the effect, of [the master-general Castinus'] rash presumption. Seville and Carthagena became the reward, or rather the prey, of the ferocious conquerors...
p. 233. The conquest of Africa was facilitated by the active zeal or the secret favour of a domestic faction...
p. 236. [Augustin] boldly sounded the dark abyss of grace, predestination, free-will, and original sin; and the rigid system of Christianity which he framed or restored has been entertained with public applause and secret reluctance by the Latin church.
p. 236. The church of Rome has canonised Augustin and reprobated Calvin. Yet, as the real difference between them is invisible even to a theological microscope, the Molinists are oppressed by the authority of the saint, and the Jansenists are disgraced by their resemblance to the heretic.
p. 237. By the skill of Boniface, and perhaps by the ignorance of the Vandals, the siege of Hippo was protracted above fourteen months...
p. 238. It might naturally be expected, after the retreat of Boniface, that the Vandals would achieve without resistance or delay the conquest of Africa. Eight years however elapsed from the evacuation of Hippo to the reduction of Carthage.
p. 238. This moderation, which cannot be imputed to the justice, must be ascribed to the policy, of the conqueror.
p. 238. [Genseric] subscribed a solemn treaty, with the hope of deriving some advantage from the term of its continuance and the moment of its violation.
p. 239. A new city [ie., Carthage] had arisen from its ruins, with the title of a colony; and though Carthage might yield to the royal prerogatives of Constantinople, and perhaps to the trade of Alexandria, or the splendour of Antioch, she still maintained the second rank in the West...
p. 239. The habits of trade and the abuse of luxury had corrupted [the Carthaginians'] manners; but their impious contempt of monks and the shameless practice of unnatural lusts are the two abominations which excite the pious vehemence of Salvian, the preacher of the age.
p. 245. The kings of the Huns assumed the solid benefits, as well as the vain honours, of the negotiation.
p. 246. It was natural enough that the Scythians should adore, with peculiar devotion, the god of war; but as they were incapable of forming either an abstract idea or a corporeal representation, they worshipped their tutelar deity under the symbol of an iron cimeter.
p. 251. [A line of castles and fortresses at the Illyrian frontier] were commonly sufficient to repel, or to intercept, the inroads of an enemy who was ignorant of the art, and impatient of the delay, of a regular siege.
p. 252. [A] military force was collected in Europe, formidable by their arms and numbers, if the generals had understood the science of command, and their soldiers the duty of obedience.
p. 245. [T]he barbarians, who despised death, might be apprehensive of disease...
p. 256. [T]he universal corruption which increased the influence of the rich and aggravated the misfortunes of the poor.
p. 256. [Attila] stipulated the immediate payment of six thousand pounds of gold to defray the expenses, or to expiate the guilt, of the war.
p. 260. [I]t was with extreme difficulty that Maximin and Priscus were able to divert the conversation or to soothe the angry minds of the barbarians.
p. 263. When Maximin offered his presents to Cerca the principal queen [of Attila]... his attentive eye was able to discover some taste in the ornaments, and some regularity in the proportions [of her mansion's architecture].
p. 267. Vigilius... [carried] with him a weighty purse of gold, which the favourite eunuch had furnished, to satisfy the demands of Edecon and to corrupt the fidelity of the guards.
p. 271. [Aetius] soothed their [the barbarians'] passions, consulted their prejudices, balanced their interest, and checked their ambition.
p. 273. At the head of an army of Huns, [Count