Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/364

 340 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, which he seems to have consulted only the dictates of XI. his heart. The frequent rebellions of the provinces had involved almost every person in the guilt of treason, almost every estate in the case of confiscation; and Gallienus often displayed his liberality, by distributing among his officers the property of his subjects. On the accession of Claudius, an old woman threw herself at his feet, and complained that a general of the late emperor had obtained an arbitrary grant of her patri- mony. This general was Claudius himself, who had not entirely escaped the contagion of the times. The emperor blushed at the reproach, but deserved the confidence which she had reposed in his equity. The confession of his fault was accompanied with imme- diate and ample restitution '. In the arduous task which Claudius had undertaken, reformation ^f restoring the empire to its ancient splendour, it was of the army, first necessary to revive among his troops a sense of order and obedience. With the authority of a veteran commander, he represented to them, that the relaxa- tion of discipline had introduced a long train of dis- orders, the effects of which were at length experienced by the soldiers themselves; that a people ruined by oppression, and indolent from despair, could no longer supply a numerous army with the means of luxury, or even of subsistence; that the danger of each individual had increased with the despotism of the mihtary order, since princes who tremble on the throne, will guard their safety by the instant sacrifice of every obnoxious subject. The emperor expatiated on the mischiefs of a lawless caprice, which the soldiers could only gratify at the expense of their own blood; as their seditious elections had so frequently been followed by civil wars, which consumed the flower of the legions either in the field of battle or in the cruel abuse of victory. He painted in the most lively colours the exhausted state of the treasury, the desolation of the provinces, the disgrace of the Roman name, and the insolent triumph ' Zonaras, 1. xii. p. 137. <