Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/294

 27G THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, able correspondence with the enemy, of inviting his 1_ 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 aifVont as a national indignity *'. When the tyrant Caligula was suspected of an intention to invest a very extraordi- nary candidate with the consular robes, the sacrile- gious profanation would have scarcely excited less astonishment, if, instead of a horse, the noblest chief- tain of Germany or Britain had been the object of his choice. The revolution of three centuries had pro- duced so remarkable a change in the prejudices of the people, that, with the public approbation, Constantine showed his successors the example of bestowing the honours of the consulship on the barbarians, who by their merit and services had deserved to be ranked among the first of the Romans*^. 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 con- tracted by the irreconcileable 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. Seven mini- IV. Besides the magistrates and generals, who at a distance from the court diffused their delegated autho- rity over the provinces and armies, the emperor con- ferred the rank of ' illustrious' on seven of his more immediate servants, to whose fidelity he intrusted his ^ Malarichus — adhibitis Francis, quorura ea tempestate in palatio multi- tudo florehat, erectius jam loquebatur tumultuabaturque. Ammian. 1. xv. c. 5. « Barbaros omnium primus, ad usque fasces auxerat et trabeas consulares. Ammian. 1. xx. c. 10. Eusebius (in Vit. Constantin. 1. iv, c. 7.) and Aure- lius Victor seem to confirm the truth of this assertion ; yet in the thirty-two consular fasti of the reign of Constantine, I 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. sters of the palace.