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The Profession of Law – The Military Officers – The Reduction of the Legions – The Difficulty of Levies & The Increase of Barbarian Auxilaries.
All the civil magistrates were drawn from the profession of
the law. The celebrated Institutes of Justinian are addressed to
the youth of his dominions, who had devoted themselves to the
study of Roman jurisprudence; and the sovereign condescends to
animate their diligence, by the assurance that their skill and
ability would in time be rewarded by an adequate share in the
government of the republic. 119 The rudiments of this lucrative
science were taught in all the considerable cities of the east
and west; but the most famous school was that of Berytus, 120 on
the coast of Phoenicia; which flourished above three centuries
from the time of Alexander Severus, the author perhaps of an
institution so advantageous to his native country. After a
regular course of education, which lasted five years, the
students dispersed themselves through the provinces, in search of
fortune and honors; nor could they want an inexhaustible supply
of business in the great empire, already corrupted by the multiplicity
of laws, of arts, and of vices. The court of the Pretorian
praefect of the east could alone furnish employment for one
hundred and fifty advocates, sixty-four of whom were
distinguished by peculiar privileges, and two were annually
chosen, with a salary of sixty pounds of gold, to defend the
causes of the treasury. The first experiment was made of their
judicial talents, by appointing them to act occasionally as
assessors to the magistrates; from thence they were often raised
to preside in the tribunals before which they had pleaded. They
obtained the government of a province; and, by the aid of merit,
of reputation, or of favor, they ascended, by successive steps,
to the illustrious dignities of the state. 121 In the practice
of the bar, these men had considered reason as the instrument of
dispute; they interpreted the laws according to the dictates of
private interest and the same pernicious habits might still
adhere to their characters in the public administration of the
state. The honor 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, 122 who, with cunning rather than with
skill, exercised a sordid and pernicious trade. Some of them
procured admittance into families for the purpose of fomenting
differences, of encouraging suits, and of preparing a harvest of
gain for themselves or their brethren. Others, recluse in their
chambers, maintained the dignity of legal professors, by
furnishing a rich client with subtleties to confound the plainest
truths, and with arguments to color the most unjustifiable
pretensions. The splendid and popular class was composed of the
advocates, who filled the Forum with the sound of their turgid
and loquacious rhetoric. 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 were almost exhausted. 123
Footnote 119: Summa igitur ope, et alacri studio has leges
nostras accipite; et vosmetipsos sic eruditos ostendite, ut spes
vos pulcherrima foveat; toto legitimo opere perfecto, posse etiam
nostram rempublicam in par tibus ejus vobis credendis gubernari.
Justinian in proem. Institutionum.
Footnote 120: The splendor of the school of Berytus, which
preserved in the east the language and jurisprudence of the
Romans, may be computed to have lasted from the third to the
middle of the sixth century Heinecc. Jur. Rom. Hist. p. 351-356.
Footnote 121: As in a former period I have traced the civil and
military promotion of Pertinax, I shall here insert the civil
honors of Mallius Theodorus. 1. He was distinguished by his
eloquence, while he pleaded as an advocate in the court of the
Pretorian praefect. 2. He governed one of the provinces of
Africa, either as president or consular, and deserved, by his
administration, the honor of a brass statue. 3. He was appointed
vicar, or vice-praefect, of Macedonia. 4. Quaestor. 5. Count of
the sacred largesses. 6. Pretorian praefect of the Gauls; whilst
he might yet be represented as a young man. 7. After a retreat,
perhaps a disgrace of many years, which Mallius (confounded by
some critics with the poet Manilius; see Fabricius Bibliothec.
Latin. Edit. Ernest. tom. i.c. 18, p. 501) employed in the study
of the Grecian philosophy he was named Pretorian praefect of
Italy, in the year 397. 8. While he still exercised that great
office, he was created, it the year 399, consul for the West; and
his name, on account of the infamy of his colleague, the eunuch
Eutropius, often stands alone in the Fasti. 9. In the year 408,
Mallius was appointed a second time Pretorian praefect of Italy.
Even in the venal panegyric of Claudian, we may discover the
merit of Mallius Theodorus, who, by a rare felicity, was the
intimate friend, both of Symmachus and of St. Augustine. See
Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p. 1110-1114.
Footnote 122: Mamertinus in Panegyr. Vet. xi. x. 20. Asterius
apud Photium, p. 1500.
Footnote 123: The curious passage of Ammianus, (l. xxx. c. 4,)
in which he paints the manners of contemporary lawyers, affords a
strange mixture of sound sense, false rhetoric, and extravagant
satire. Godefroy (Prolegom. ad. Cod. Theod. c. i. p. 185)
supports the historian by similar complaints and authentic facts.
In the fourth century, many camels might have been laden with
law-books. Eunapius in Vit. Aedesii, p. 72.
III. In the system of policy introduced by Augustus, the
governors, those at least of the Imperial provinces, were
invested with the full powers of the sovereign himself.
Ministers of peace and war, the distribution of rewards and
punishments depended on them alone, and they successively
appeared on their tribunal in the robes of civil magistracy, and
in complete armor at the head of the Roman legions. 124 The
influence of the revenue, the authority of law, and the command
of a military force, concurred to render their power supreme and
absolute; and whenever they were tempted to violate their
allegiance, the loyal province which they involved in their
rebellion was scarcely sensible of any change in its political
state. From the time of Commodus to the reign of Constantine,
near one hundred governors might be enumerated, who, with various
success, erected the standard of revolt; and though the innocent
were too often sacrificed, the guilty might be sometimes
prevented, by the suspicious cruelty of their master. 125 To
secure his throne and the public tranquillity from these
formidable servants, Constantine resolved to divide the military
from the civil administration, and to establish, as a permanent
and professional distinction, a practice which had been adopted
only as an occasional expedient. The supreme jurisdiction
exercised by the Pretorian praefects over the armies of the
empire, was transferred to the two masters-general whom he
instituted, the one for the cavalry, the other for the infantry;
and though each of these illustrious officers was more peculiarly
responsible for the discipline of those troops which were under
his immediate inspection, they both indifferently commanded in
the field the several bodies, whether of horse or foot, which
were united in the same army. 126 Their number was soon doubled
by the division of the east and west; and as separate generals of
the same rank and title were appointed on the four important
frontiers of the Rhine, of the Upper and the Lower Danube, and of
the Euphrates, the defence of the Roman empire was at length
committed to eight masters-general of the cavalry and infantry.
Under their orders, thirty-five military commanders were
stationed in the provinces: three in Britain, six in Gaul, one in
Spain, one in Italy, five on the Upper, and four on the Lower
Danube; in Asia, eight, three in Egypt, and four in Africa. The
titles of counts, and dukes, 127 by which they were properly
distinguished, have obtained in modern languages so very
different a sense, that the use of them may occasion some
surprise. But it should be recollected, that the second of those
appellations is only a corruption of the Latin word, which was
indiscriminately applied to any military chief. All these
provincial generals were therefore dukes; but no more than ten
among them were dignified with the rank of counts or companions,
a title of honor, or rather of favor, which had been recently
invented in the court of Constantine. A gold belt was the ensign
which distinguished the office of the counts and dukes; and
besides their pay, they received a liberal allowance sufficient
to maintain one hundred and ninety servants, and one hundred and
fifty-eight horses. They were strictly prohibited from
interfering in any matter which related to the administration of
justice or the revenue; but the command which they exercised over
the troops of their department, was independent of the authority
of the magistrates. About the same time that Constantine gave a
legal sanction to the ecclesiastical order, he instituted in the
Roman empire the nice balance of the civil and the military
powers. The emulation, and sometimes the discord, which reigned
between two professions of opposite interests and incompatible
manners, was productive of beneficial and of pernicious
consequences. It was seldom to be expected that the general and
the civil governor of a province should either conspire for the
disturbance, or should unite for the service, of their country.
While the one delayed to offer the assistance which the other
disdained to solicit, the troops very frequently remained without
orders or without supplies; the public safety was betrayed, and
the defenceless subjects were left exposed to the fury of the
barbarians. The divided administration which had been formed by
Constantine, relaxed the vigor of the state, while it secured the
tranquillity of the monarch.
Footnote 124: See a very splendid example in the life of
Agricola, particularly c. 20, 21. The lieutenant of Britain was
intrusted with the same powers which Cicero, proconsul of
Cilicia, had exercised in the name of the senate and people.
Footnote 125: The Abbe Dubos, who has examined with accuracy
(see Hist. de la Monarchie Francoise, tom. i. p. 41-100, edit.
1742) the institutions of Augustus and of Constantine, observes,
that if Otho had been put to death the day before he executed his
conspiracy, Otho would now appear in history as innocent as
Corbulo.
Footnote 126: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 110. Before the end of the
reign of Constantius, the magistri militum were already increased
to four. See Velesius ad Ammian. l. xvi. c. 7.
Footnote 127: Though the military counts and dukes are
frequently mentioned, both in history and the codes, we must have
recourse to the Notitia for the exact knowledge of their number
and stations. For the institution, rank, privileges, &c., of the
counts in general see Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xii. - xx., with
the commentary of Godefroy.
The memory of Constantine has been deservedly censured for
another innovation, which corrupted military discipline and
prepared the ruin of the empire. The nineteen years which
preceded his final victory over Licinius, had been a period of
license and intestine war. The rivals who contended for the
possession of the Roman world, had withdrawn the greatest part of
their forces from the guard of the general frontier; and the
principal cities which formed the boundary of their respective
dominions were filled with soldiers, who considered their
countrymen as their most implacable enemies. After the use of
these internal garrisons had ceased with the civil war, the
conqueror wanted either wisdom or firmness to revive the severe
discipline of Diocletian, and to suppress a fatal indulgence,
which habit had endeared and almost confirmed to the military
order. From the reign of Constantine, a popular and even legal
distinction was admitted between the Palatines 128 and the
Borderers; the troops of the court, as they were improperly
styled, and the troops of the frontier. The former, elevated by
the superiority of their pay and privileges, were permitted,
except in the extraordinary emergencies of war, to occupy their
tranquil stations in the heart of the provinces. The most
flourishing cities were oppressed by the intolerable weight of
quarters. The soldiers insensibly forgot the virtues of their
profession, and contracted only the vices of civil life. They
were either degraded by the industry of mechanic trades, or
enervated by the luxury of baths and theatres. They soon became
careless of their martial exercises, curious in their diet and
apparel; and while they inspired terror to the subjects of the
empire, they trembled at the hostile approach of the barbarians.
129 The chain of fortifications which Diocletian and his
colleagues had extended along the banks of the great rivers, was
no longer maintained with the same care, or defended with the
same vigilance. The numbers which still remained under the name
of the troops of the frontier, might be sufficient for the
ordinary defence; but their spirit was degraded by the
humiliating reflection, that they who were exposed to the
hardships and dangers of a perpetual warfare, were rewarded only
with about two thirds of the pay and emoluments which were
lavished on the troops of the court. Even the bands or legions
that were raised the nearest to the level of those unworthy
favorites, were in some measure disgraced by the title of honor
which they were allowed to assume. It was in vain that
Constantine repeated the most dreadful menaces of fire and sword
against the Borderers who should dare desert their colors, to
connive at the inroads of the barbarians, or to participate in
the spoil. 130 The mischiefs which flow from injudicious
counsels are seldom removed by the application of partial
severities; and though succeeding princes labored to restore the
strength and numbers of the frontier garrisons, the empire, till
the last moment of its dissolution, continued to languish under
the mortal wound which had been so rashly or so weakly inflicted
by the hand of Constantine.
Footnote 128: Zosimus, l ii. p. 111. The distinction between
the two classes of Roman troops, is very darkly expressed in the
historians, the laws, and the Notitia. Consult, however, the
copious paratitlon, or abstract, which Godefroy has drawn up of
the seventh book, de Re Militari, of the Theodosian Code, l. vii.
tit. i. leg. 18, l. viii. tit. i. leg. 10.
Footnote 129: Ferox erat in suos miles et rapax, ignavus vero in
hostes et fractus. Ammian. l. xxii. c. 4. He observes, that
they loved downy beds and houses of marble; and that their cups
were heavier than their swords.
Footnote 130: Cod. Theod. l. vii. tit. i. leg. 1, tit. xii. leg.
i. See Howell's Hist. of the World, vol. ii. p. 19. That
learned historian, who is not sufficiently known, labors to
justify the character and policy of Constantine.
The same timid policy, of dividing whatever is united, of
reducing whatever is eminent, of dreading every active power, and
of expecting that the most feeble will prove the most obedient,
seems to pervade the institutions of several princes, and
particularly those of Constantine. The martial pride of the
legions, whose victorious camps had so often been the scene of
rebellion, was nourished by the memory of their past exploits,
and the consciousness of their actual strength. As long as they
maintained their ancient establishment of six thousand men, they
subsisted, under the reign of Diocletian, each of them singly, a
visible and important object in the military history of the Roman
empire. A few years afterwards, these gigantic bodies were
shrunk to a very diminutive size; and when seven legions, with
some auxiliaries, defended the city of Amida against the
Persians, the total garrison, with the inhabitants of both sexes,
and the peasants of the deserted country, did not exceed the
number of twenty thousand persons. 131 From this fact, and from
similar examples, there is reason to believe, that the
constitution of the legionary troops, to which they partly owed
their valor and discipline, was dissolved by Constantine; and
that the bands of Roman infantry, which still assumed the same
names and the same honors, consisted only of one thousand or
fifteen hundred men. 132 The conspiracy of so many separate
detachments, each of which was awed by the sense of its own
weakness, could easily be checked; and the successors of
Constantine might indulge their love of ostentation, by issuing
their orders to one hundred and thirty-two legions, inscribed on
the muster-roll of their numerous armies. The remainder of their
troops was distributed into several hundred cohorts of infantry,
and squadrons of cavalry. Their arms, and titles, and ensigns,
were calculated to inspire terror, and to display the variety of
nations who marched under the Imperial standard. And not a
vestige was left of that severe simplicity, which, in the ages of
freedom and victory, had distinguished the line of battle of a
Roman army from the confused host of an Asiatic monarch. 133 A
more particular enumeration, drawn from the Notitia, might
exercise the diligence of an antiquary; but the historian will
content himself with observing, that the number of permanent
stations or garrisons established on the frontiers of the empire,
amounted to five hundred and eighty-three; and that, under the
successors of Constantine, the complete force of the military
establishment was computed at six hundred and forty-five thousand
soldiers. 134 An effort so prodigious surpassed the wants of a
more ancient, and the faculties of a later, period.
Footnote 131: Ammian. l. xix. c. 2. He observes, (c. 5,) that
the desperate sallies of two Gallic legions were like a handful
of water thrown on a great conflagration.
Footnote 132: Pancirolus ad Notitiam, p. 96. Memoires de
l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxv. p. 491.
Footnote 133: Romana acies unius prope formae erat et hominum et
armorum genere. - Regia acies varia magis multis gentibus
dissimilitudine armorum auxiliorumque erat. T. Liv. l. xxxvii.
c. 39, 40. Flaminius, even before the event, had compared the
army of Antiochus to a supper in which the flesh of one vile
animal was diversified by the skill of the cooks. See the Life
of Flaminius in Plutarch.
Footnote 134: Agathias, l. v. p. 157, edit. Louvre.
In the various states of society, armies are recruited from
very different motives. Barbarians are urged by the love of war;
the citizens of a free republic may be prompted by a principle of
duty; the subjects, or at least the nobles, of a monarchy, are
animated by a sentiment of honor; but the timid and luxurious
inhabitants of a declining empire must be allured into the
service by the hopes of profit, or compelled by the dread of
punishment. The resources of the Roman treasury were exhausted
by the increase of pay, by the repetition of donatives, and by
the invention of new emolument and indulgences, which, in the
opinion of the provincial youth might compensate the hardships
and dangers of a military life. Yet, although the stature was
lowered, 135 although slaves, least by a tacit connivance, were
indiscriminately received into the ranks, the insurmountable
difficulty of procuring a regular and adequate supply of
volunteers, obliged the emperors to adopt more effectual and
coercive methods. The lands bestowed on the veterans, as the
free reward of their valor were henceforward granted under a
condition which contain the first rudiments of the feudal
tenures; that their sons, who succeeded to the inheritance,
should devote themselves to the profession of arms, as soon as
they attained the age of manhood; and their cowardly refusal was
punished by the lose of honor, of fortune, or even of life. 136
But as the annual growth of the sons of the veterans bore a very
small proportion to the demands of the service, levies of men
were frequently required from the provinces, and every proprietor
was obliged either to take up arms, or to procure a substitute,
or to purchase his exemption by the payment of a heavy fine. The
sum of forty-two pieces of gold, to which it was reduced
ascertains the exorbitant price of volunteers, and the reluctance
with which the government admitted of this alterative. 137 Such
was the horror for the profession of a soldier, which had
affected the minds of the degenerate Romans, that many of the
youth of Italy and the provinces chose to cut off the fingers of
their right hand, to escape from being pressed into the service;
and this strange expedient was so commonly practised, as to
deserve the severe animadversion of the laws, 138 and a peculiar
name in the Latin language. 139
Footnote 135: Valentinian (Cod. Theodos. l. vii. tit. xiii. leg.
3) fixes the standard at five feet seven inches, about five feet
four inches and a half, English measure. It had formerly been
five feet ten inches, and in the best corps, six Roman feet. Sed
tunc erat amplior multitude se et plures sequebantur militiam
armatam. Vegetius de Re Militari l. i. c. v.
Footnote 136: See the two titles, De Veteranis and De Filiis
Veteranorum, in the seventh book of the Theodosian Code. The age
at which their military service was required, varied from
twenty-five to sixteen. If the sons of the veterans appeared
with a horse, they had a right to serve in the cavalry; two
horses gave them some valuable privileges
Footnote 137: Cod. Theod. l. vii. tit. xiii. leg. 7. According
to the historian Socrates, (see Godefroy ad loc.,) the same
emperor Valens sometimes required eighty pieces of gold for a
recruit. In the following law it is faintly expressed, that
slaves shall not be admitted inter optimas lectissimorum militum
turmas.
Footnote 138: The person and property of a Roman knight, who had
mutilated his two sons, were sold at public auction by order of
Augustus. (Sueton. in August. c. 27.) The moderation of that
artful usurper proves, that this example of severity was
justified by the spirit of the times. Ammianus makes a
distinction between the effeminate Italians and the hardy Gauls.
(L. xv. c. 12.) Yet only 15 years afterwards, Valentinian, in a
law addressed to the praefect of Gaul, is obliged to enact that
these cowardly deserters shall be burnt alive. Cod. Theod. l.
vii. tit. xiii. leg. 5.) Their numbers in Illyricum were so
considerable, that the province complained of a scarcity of
recruits. (Id. leg. 10.)
Footnote 139: They were called Murci. Murcidus is found in
Plautus and Festus, to denote a lazy and cowardly person, who,
according to Arnobius and Augustin, was under the immediate
protection of the goddess Murcia. From this particular instance
of cowardice, murcare is used as synonymous to mutilare, by the
writers of the middle Latinity. See Linder brogius and Valesius
ad Ammian. Marcellin, l. xv. c. 12
The introduction of barbarians into the Roman armies became
every day more universal, more necessary, and more fatal. The
most daring of the Scythians, of the Goths, and of the Germans,
who delighted in war, and who found it more profitable to defend
than to ravage the provinces, were enrolled, not only in the
auxiliaries of their respective nations, but in the legions
themselves, and among the most distinguished of the Palatine
troops. As they freely mingled with the subjects of the empire,
they gradually learned to despise their manners, and to imitate
their arts. They abjured the implicit reverence which the pride
of Rome had exacted from their ignorance, while they acquired the
knowledge and possession of those advantages by which alone she
supported her declining greatness. The barbarian soldiers, who
displayed any military talents, were advanced, without exception,
to the most important commands; and the names of the tribunes, of
the counts and dukes, and of the generals themselves, betray a
foreign origin, which they no longer condescended to disguise.
They were often intrusted with the conduct of a war against their
countrymen; and though most of them preferred the ties of
allegiance to those of blood, they did not always avoid the
guilt, or at least the suspicion, of holding a treasonable
correspondence with the enemy, of inviting his invasion, or of
sparing his retreat. The camps and the palace of the son of
Constantine were governed by the powerful faction of the Franks,
who preserved the strictest connection with each other, and with
their country, and who resented every personal affront as a
national indignity. 140 When the tyrant Caligula was suspected
of an intention to invest a very extraordinary candidate with the
consular robes, the sacrilegious profanation would have scarcely
excited less astonishment, if, instead of a horse, the noblest
chieftain of Germany or Britain had been the object of his
choice. The revolution of three centuries had produced so
remarkable a change in the prejudices of the people, that, with
the public approbation, Constantine showed his successors the
example of bestowing the honors of the consulship on the
barbarians, who, by their merit and services, had deserved to be
ranked among the first of the Romans. 141 But as these hardy
veterans, who had been educated in the ignorance or contempt of
the laws, were incapable of exercising any civil offices, the
powers of the human mind were contracted by the irreconcilable
separation of talents as well as of professions. The
accomplished citizens of the Greek and Roman republics, whose
characters could adapt themselves to the bar, the senate, the
camp, or the schools, had learned to write, to speak, and to act
with the same spirit, and with equal abilities.
Footnote 140: Malarichus - adhibitis Francis quorum ea
tempestate in palatio multitudo florebat, erectius jam loquebatur
tumultuabaturque. Ammian. l. xv. c. 5.
Footnote 141: Barbaros omnium primus, ad usque fasces auxerat et
trabeas consulares. Ammian. l. xx. c. 10. Eusebius (in Vit.
Constantin. l. iv c.7) and Aurelius Victor seem to confirm the
truth of this assertion yet in the thirty-two consular Fasti of
the reign of Constantine cannot discover the name of a single
barbarian. I should therefore interpret the liberality of that
prince as relative to the ornaments rather than to the office, of
the consulship.
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To cite original text:
Gibbon, Edward, 1737-1794. The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. (NY : Knopf, 1993), v. 2, pp. 117 – 130 .