Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/291

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 273 suinof their orders to one hundred and thirty-two le- CHAP. • XVII gions, 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 ins])ire 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 distin- guished the line of battle of a Roman army from the confused host of an Asiatic monarch *. A more par- ticular enumeration, drawn from the Notitia, might exercise the diligence of an antiquary ; but the histo- rian will content himself with observing, that the num- ber 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 estab- lishment was computed at six hundred and forty-five thousand soldiers *. An effort so prodigious surpassed the wants of a more ancient, and the faculties of a later, period. In the various states of society, armies are recruited Difficulty of 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 sen- timent of honour ; but the timid and luxurious inhabit- ants of a declining empire must be allured into the ser- vice 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 repeti- tion of donatives, and by the invention of new emolu- ments and indulgences, which, in the opinion of the =* Romana acies unius prope formee erat et hominum et armorum genere. — Regia acies varia magis multis gentibus dissimilitudine armoium auxilio- rumque erat. T. Liv. 1. xxxvii. c. 39, 40. Flatninius, even before the event, had compared the army of Anliochus to a supper, in which the flesh of one vile animal was diversified by the skill of the cooks. See the life of Flaminiusin I'lutarch. ' Agathias, 1. v. p. 157. edit. Louvre. VOL. II. T