Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/66

 48 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP. Greece, were yielded to the western empire, and the dominions of Constantine now extended from the con- fines of Caledonia to the extremity of Peloponnesus. It was stipulated by the same treaty, that three royal youths, the sons of the emperors, should be called to the hopes of the succession. Crispus and the younger Constantine were soon afterwards declared Caesars in the west, while the younger Licinius was invested with the same dignity in the east. In this double propor- tion of honours, the conqueror asserted the superiority of his arms and power ^. General The reconciliation of Constantine and Licinius, Fa^wro/ though it was imbittered by resentment and jealousy, Constan- by the remembrance of recent injuries, and by tbe ap- '"^A.D. prehension of future dangers, maintained, however, 315—3-23. above eight years, the tranquillity of the Roman world. As a very regular series of the imperial laws com- mences about this period, it would not be difficult to transcribe the civil regulations which employed the leisure of Constantine. But the most important of his institutions are intimately connected with the new system of policy and religion, which was not perfectly established till the last and peaceful years of his reign. There are many of his laws, which, as far as they concern the rights and property of individuals, and the practice of the bar, are more properly referred to the private than to the public jurisprudence of the empire ; and he published many edicts of so local and temporary a nature, that they would ill deserve the notice of a gen- eral history. Two laws, however, may be selected from the crowd ; the one for its importance, the other for its singularity ; the former for its remarkable bene- volence, the latter for its excessive severity. L The '^ Zosimus, 1. ii. p. 93; Anonym. Valesian. p. 713; Eutropius, x. 5; A urelius Victor; Euseb. inChron. ; Sozomen, 1. i. c. 2. Four of these writers affirm, that the promotion of the Caisars was an article of the treaty. It is, however, certain, that the younger Constantine and Licinius were not yet born ; and it is highly probable, that the promotion was made the first of March, A. D. 317. The treaty had probably stipulated, that two Caesars might be created by the western, and one only by the eastern emperor; but each of them reserved to himself the choice of the persons.